


The Death of Supergirl

by maggiemerc



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, F/F, Friendship is Magic, Kara Forgot To Leave A Note, no actual death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-07 01:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8777467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiemerc/pseuds/maggiemerc
Summary: In Kara’s eagerness to travel through space and time to another earth and help new friends save a planet from an imminent alien threat she maaaaay have forgotten to do something very important.Namely tell anyone where the hell she went.When Maggie notices her new girlfriend is acting suspicious she starts to investigate and uncovers a group of people unravelling after the loss of their cornerstone.





	1. Chapter 1

Alex was kissing a girl.

Alex was _kissing_ a _girl_.

A _girl_.

Soft lips—not that she hadn’t kissed boys with soft lips.

And a nice smell—not that she hadn’t kissed guys who smelled nice (she felt pretty strongly about people smelling nice).

But different. Wonderfully different. And not just in the big ways like boobs and no stubble and long hair that got in her mouth when she pressed Maggie against the counter and had to take a step back before kissing her again.

But in all the little ways. Hard to quantify ways.

She had to stop kissing Maggie and Maggie stopped kissing her too, making this cute little grunt of frustration when Alex pulled away and pressed her forehead to Maggie’s.

God.

She’d kissed a girl until the girl’s lips were nearly bruised.

That had…she’d never kissed a guy like that.

Maggie’s hands where on her hips, hot through the thin material of her pajama bottoms. She shook Alex a little. “You okay?”

The way she tilted her head after she said it was all Alex needed to know that Maggie was ready to keep on kissing. But she didn’t. She stood there letting Alex breathe and rubbing little circles into her waistband with her thumbs.

Everything was different and in a new and wonderful way that had nothing to do with realizations of being gay.

It was more…confirmation.

Definitely confirmation.

Kissing girls was different and Alex was really, really okay with that.

“Yeah,” she panted.

God. Maggie made her _pant_.

Maggie grinned. “Just…making sure you’re with me.”

“Very.”

She kissed Maggie again and the sound Maggie made. A little squealing kind of sigh in the back of her throat. That was a noise Alex wanted to hear forever.

But she stopped again, and reached pass Maggie to grab the pizza, pressing her whole body into Maggie and pretending that it didn’t turn her on as much as it had to turn Maggie on.

Especially when Maggie leaned her head into Alex’s shoulder.

Yeah. Alex was good at this whole kissing and being smooth thing.

She popped the box open again. The smell of peppers almost overwhelming. “Hungry?”

Maggie bit her right through her shirt, and before Alex could yelp Maggie was sucking, gently on her neck and murmuring a “mm hm.”

God. Her…whatever Maggie was…didn’t play fair.

Alex missed the pizza entirely, instead her fingers dug into the cardboard box, softened by grease.

God.

She was really not accustomed to feeling like this. Not accustomed to the warmth or the wobbly legs or the crazy sense of arousal going on between those wobbly legs.

It was new and delicious and—

She stepped back.

Maggie started towards her and then stopped, apparently seeing the panic that was now full on overwhelming every other emotion that had been going on in Alex.

“Are you okay?”

She knew she had her eyes closed and that she was biting her lip and probably looked like she was in pain. “Yeah.” She even sounded like she was in pain. “I’m just…”

“I moved too fast.”

Yes.

“No!” She swallowed. When she opened her eyes again Maggie was standing there doing, what Alex assumed, was the Maggie Sawyer version of a kicked puppy dog look. “I…”

There was a conversation sitting between them. A big one that needed to be had.

But like Maggie had said, kiss the girls you want to kiss.

She moved back into Maggie’s space and caught her gasp of surprise with her mouth, kissing until fear fled and reason chased after it.

***

The kissing only stopped when Alex’s stomach gurgled so loudly it made Maggie giggle.

Well, not giggle. Maggie wasn’t a giggler. She was a chuckler. And she definitely chuckled. “Guess we shouldn’t let my excuse pizza go to waste.”

Alex ran her hands up and down Maggie’s arms. “Guess not.”

They took seats at the counter and ate cold pizza and drank warm beer and every time Maggie glanced at her Alex seemed to catch it and then she had to fight the bubble of feelings in her stomach.

But eventually she laughed. She had to.

“What,” Maggie laughed back.

“I just…I didn’t think you liked me.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

Technically true. Alex made like her sister and wolfed down more pizza. Because she and Maggie were rapidly getting past the fun part and to the—the rest of whatever they were, and the longer they could delay all the talks and feelings Alex would be okay.

Maggie coughed. “I should probably…work. The morning.”

Alex nodded and choked down a big bite. “Yeah. Right. Things are probably going to be messy the next few days with all the attempted genocide.”

“I hear we caught them though.”

“We did,” Alex said, her voice soft and dumb and girly sounding in her own ears.

But Maggie’s smile was soft too. She leaned in and kissed the corner of Alex’s mouth, pulling away before either could let things twist again. “Text you later.”

“I’ll charge my phone just for you.”

***

Why.

Did phones.

Ring.

So.

Loudly?

***

Alex reached blindly for her phone hitting the big green button she could barely make out.

She did not say hello.

She couldn’t see the time on her phone or from the watch on her bedside table, but she could feel, in her bones, that it was too early on a Saturday for someone to be calling.

Which left the list of people calling perilously short.

Work, could, possibly be calling, but they tended to text first and that buzz was so ingrained into her awareness that she knew she’d be awake, heart pounding, if she’d heard it.

It could have been her mother, but she never actually called on Saturday mornings because “you always look so tired Alexandra. You need to sleep more.”

That left Kara Danvers. A person, at that exact moment, Alex wanted to punt into the sun.

“I can hear you breathing Alex.”

“What,” she asked, face still firmly in her pillow.

“I just dropped Eliza off and was headed over to check on Lena Luthor before _finally_ getting to the grocery store. Do you want to do a sister night tonight? I feel like we need a sister night after the last few days.”

“What time is it?”

“Noon. Why are you still asleep?”

She muttered, “Late night.”

“Doing what? We had that whole Medusa thing wrapped up by nine.”

She sighed and rolled onto her back. The phone was hot against her face. “Maggie came over. We…talked.”

“About?”

“Stuff.”

“I’m gonna need more than that.”

“Our stuff. Us.” She dragged her hand down her face. “We talked about us.”

She could hear Kara stop. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Really okay. The kind of okay that made her grin like a dope. “It was just a late night.”

There was a whoosh of wind and less than ten seconds later Kara was standing in her living room.

“You couldn’t knock,” she shouted from across the apartment.

“You wouldn’t have let me in!” She ran towards Alex’s bed, hopping on knees first. “Was it a good talk?”

Alex glared, but her traitorous mouth curved up into a smile.

“A really good talk,” Kara asked, eyes wide.

“Not _that_ good. We didn’t—“

Kara shook her head, her prudish side flaring. “Right. But yea. Right?”

“Very yea.”

Kara twisted dramatically and collapsed onto the bed beside her. “I thought she didn’t like you.”

“Makes two of us.”

“So what changed? Your amazing surgical skills yesterday?”

Alex laughed. “Related. Hank Henshaw ever shows up again tell him I owe him a beer.”

“Seriously?”

“He made her realize life is too short.”

“If that was all it took I could have knocked her off a roof weeks ago,” Kara grumbled.

Alex settled back down under the covers, rolling over so she and Kara were face to face. “I still really like her.” The admission felt intimate and she fought the urge to cover her face and hide the blush heating her cheeks. As much as she and Kara talked, _this_ kind of talking was new for them.

Kara reached out twirled a loose lock of Alex’s hair around her finger. “I know you do,” she said softly. “Does that mean _we_ like her?”

“For now. Yes.”

“Am I still allowed to glare at her as Supergirl?”

Alex held her fingers up like she was pinching something between them. “Little fear won’t hurt her,” she said conspiratorially.

Kara curled up a little, holding her hands close to her chest. A small physical cue that Alex wasn’t the only one with…personal issues. “Speaking of sudden romantic confessions—“

Alex bit back a smirk. “Mon-El make a move?”

Kara was scandalized. “You knew?”

“Kara, the guy’s been crazy about you since Dad rescued you from Cadmus. Winn even noticed.”

“He did?”

“He’s started humming the theme to Romeo and Juliet every time he sees you two talking.”

“That’s what that was?” Kara frowned. “I thought it was the theme to Jurassic Park.”

“He can’t carry a tune.”

“He really can’t.”

Kara curled back down into her ball, looking cramped and uncomfortable. Worse was she didn’t even say anything. Bad thoughts clearly swirling in her head.

Alex reached out, tapping her with her toe. “What are you thinking?”

Kara shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I broke up with James because dating doesn’t exactly fit my current lifestyle.”

Something Alex still, privately, thought was stupid. Her sister had gone full nun after ending things with James, and between the longer hours at her day job, her “training” of Mon-El, and Supergirl there’d been little time for Kara to even nurse a crush, let alone date. When the Maggie issue had reared its head Alex had suddenly felt a little Freaky Friday’d.

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard someone use the word lifestyle in a non-homophobic context before,” Alex said. “And to be fair to Mon-El, something I generally don’t feel like doing, he does have a lot going for him that James doesn’t.” She ticked the three things she could actually think of off her fingers “He’s invulnerable to everything but lead, so you can hug him without bruising a rib. He knows how to get you drunk. And he—“Shit. Alex couldn’t actually think of a third one, and the second one sounded kind of offensive now that she’d said it out loud. “He can talk to you in Kryptonian?”

That was the third one!

“Yeah, but he’s got the Daxamite lisp when he speaks it.” Kara groaned and flopped over. “I hate boys. Can I just stop dating them forever?”

“I mean, that’s my plan.”

That earned a loud laugh and a thwack with one of her own pillows. She yanked it away and hugged it to herself. It smelled a little like the perfume Kara wore when she was trying to cover up weird crime fighting smells. “You don’t have to date him just because he’s an attractive, last-of-his-kind alien that likes you and could fight crime with you if he ever really wanted to. You don’t have to date anyone. Do you even like him?”

“Not at first.” Kara said, like it was a point to be made in favor of dating Mon-El.

“Yes,” Alex said dryly, “I remember your timely Hatfield and McCoy reference.”

“But he’s gotten better you know? He’s trying. He deserves something.”

“Sure. A beer. Or a nice meal.” She made sure Kara was looking her in the eye. “Mon-El’s only better because _you_ dragged him kicking and screaming into the world of common decency. That doesn’t mean he deserves _you_. You’re nice Kara, but that’s taking it a little far.”

“I know,” she groaned. “I know.”

“You’re just doing that thing you always do when a crush comes out to you.” She’d done it with Winn too—although she never got quite to the “maybe I should date him to be nice” stage. Also Will back in college. And Pete in high school. And, weird only in hindsight, that girl Sarah that had lived down the street from them.

“Why do my friends always fall in love with me,” Kara asked, completely un-ironically.

Alex sat up. “Okay. With _that_ pitiful complaint I’m going to go take a shower and maybe head over to the police station. We’re supposed to be getting custody of Lillian Luthor after her arraignment this afternoon.”

Kara sat up too—a little hopeful. “You need Supergirl there?”

“No, I think Supergirl is going to be busy reigniting an ancient interstellar feud by breaking a Daxamite’s heart.”

“You don’t think he’ll actually hate me do you?”

“Not if you’ve trained him right.”

“Alex,” Kara pleaded.

She came around the bed and pulled her sister up into a hug. “He’ll get over it Kara, and then he’ll go and join James and Winn’s broken hearts club. They’ll get drunk and talk about how you always eat the last piece of pie even when someone else has claimed it, and how your Kryptonian hair leaves the worst clogs in the shower drain.”

She glared. “I can’t wait until all your ex-girlfriends start a club.”

“Pfft. What will they possibly hate about me?”

She looked at Alex over the edge of her glasses. “Your inability to resupply detergent, shampoo, or tampons.”

“Okay.”

“And your creepy obsession with pinball.”

“Kara.”

“Also how you never rewrap the cheese after you eat some.”

“It’s good for it—“

“That thing you do where you don’t wash you hair for three days because your scalp needs to breathe.’”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

“Oh, and how you never have enough food in the pantry—“

“That is because of you, Miss eight hundred dollars on Mom’s gas card in one month from junk food at the gas station Danvers.”

Kara wrinkled her nose, “I’m kind of surprised anyone likes us.”

“But we’re pretty awesome.”

“Oh totally.”

***

There was one problem with having a long wall of windows. The sun would begin to peek in as the afternoon wore on. The room would turn hot. Sweat would bead at Lena’s hairline and it would feel like her skin was beginning to bake.

She was not looking forward to summer.

But it was still fall, so she spun around in her chair to face the window and bake in the sun like a cat. She even closed her eyes. Dared her mind to wander to more pleasant pastures.

If Lena focused on her breathing, or the soft strum of classical music filtering in from speakers overhead, then she could forget she was in her office. Forget that she’d come in on a Saturday, hours after her mother had been arrested, the lobby of her building nearly destroyed.

If she closed her eyes the world was a little less awful.

But then a knock on the door stirred her from her peaceful escape and she spun in her chair, expecting to see her assistant, haggard and in on a holiday weekend, or maybe one of the drones from legal or PR, eager to spin her familial betrayal into gold.

Only the door opened and, “Kara.” She said the reporter’s name entirely too wistfully.

Kara smiled. Girlish and friendly and far too nice. “Hi.”

Lena stood and came around her desk. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be off celebrating a four day weekend.”

“Oh I would. I am. I just…” she came further into the room before stuttering to a stop just out of Lena’s reach. “I heard what happened.”

“Come for a quote?”

“Well I won’t turn one down.” She said it with such an easy smile. Such natural charm. Then she took a step closer. “More to check on you though.”

And Lena was compelled to take a single step back. “I’m fine.”

Kara tilted her head. “Are you? Because I don’t think I’d be.”

“Until your family has a habit of trying to destroy the world we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Kara readjusted her glasses. It was a little fidget she did. A tell as clear as the poker player who bit their lip when they bluffed.

The only problem was Lena had yet to figure out what the tell was of.

“I might not have experience with that,” Kara stuttered. “But I know what it’s like to be disappointed in people you care about.”

She looked at Lena, briefly, over the rims of her glasses. Lena was struck by how blue Kara’s eyes were. How sharp and focused. Almost…alien. Then the glasses were pushed back up her nose and Lena found herself staring at Kara’s smile.

Kara always seemed to smile easily, but there were some that could only be earned. A little joke, or a bit of truth. If uttered at just the right moment then Kara Danvers’s smile could light the whole world.

Lena nodded at the couch and they both took a seat, Kara sitting tall and prim and never as casual as Lena would have liked. “I should thank you for putting me onto her scheme.”

“Me? What—why? How?”

“You’re very good at getting a quote Kara, but you’re also very kind. You came in here asking about a woman I’d already told you I had a difficult relationship with.”

Kara blushed. “I was just—due diligence.”

“And very professional.” She squeezed Kara’s knee, but drew her hand back before Kara could flinch. “But if you hadn’t put me onto her I would have been completely blindsided when Supergirl showed up last night.”

“Supergirl,” Kara squeaked. “Here?”

“Accusing my mother of exactly what she later tried to do. Which…Supergirl lacks your tact.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. She seems very…”

“She’s a bruiser. A nice one, but I suspect she hasn’t met many problems she didn’t try to punch her way out of.”

“Even last night?”

Lena laughed. “She came right out with how my mother is evil and kidnapped her. If you hadn’t been sniffing around earlier I would have been so repulsed I never would have believed her.”

Kara touched her glasses again. “Well, I’m just glad…I could help.”

“I almost feel like I owe you.”

Kara flushed. “Oh Lena that’s—I owe you! You’re the one with the evil mom.”

Lena flinched, surprised with how naturally Kara said it.

“Sorry,” Kara said, as if she’d caught her faux pax.

“I was going to say drinks are on me, but now maybe you should be buying the first round.”

She ducked her head. “I can do that. How about later this afternoon? Around five? I can buy you a drink and you can complain about your mom.” She held her hands up. “Completely off record.”

Lena laughed. “Of course. That sounds wonderful.”

Kara got up to leave, bustling out and babbling about a craft drinks bar she was sure Lena would like. But she stopped abruptly at Lena’s door. “I’m glad you’re okay,” Kara said.

And the funny thing was, Lena actually believed her.

***

Alex arrived on Kara’s doorstep with a six pack of beer, more wings that she thought the wing place could legally serve, and zero pot stickers. It was a risk to show up pot sticker free, but Alex was willing to accept it.

But letting herself into Kara’s apartment, food held carefully in one arm, she was struck with a feeling of unease.

The place was dark, the TV off, the lights dim.

She called her sister’s name, once, tentatively. And Kara didn’t appear around the corner from her bedroom, exuberance giving her every step a bounce.

That was when Alex noticed the groceries forgotten on the floor in a pile, and the keys and purse on the table, phone peeking out of the top.

“Kara,” she called again.

But she knew it was pointless.

Wherever Kara was it wasn’t there.

Her sister was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got carried away on this chapter. I would make apologies, but I REALLY like the tangent on space syphilis.

“Where is she?”

The woman across from her, perfectly poised in her blood red prison scrubs, just smiled.

Alex…Alex shouldn’t have been in the room with Lillian Luthor. She shouldn’t have been all alone with the woman, sitting at the table opposite her and fighting the urge to smash that smile into the table top.

But Alex had insisted.

And J’onn had obliged.

“Who,” Lillian Luthor finally asked.

Alex glowered. Waited. She wasn’t going to simply say her sister’s name. Or her other name. She wasn’t going to give this woman the satisfaction.

Luthor reached for the coffee helpfully provided by a junior agent. Took a sip.

“You dragged me out of that little hole you’re keeping me in, and you’re sitting here in your little civilian outfit, which means you didn’t even bother to change. Must be urgent. Who’s missing, Agent Danvers?”

Alex continued to stare. She’d hit that point where if she opened her mouth nothing good was gonna come out.

Luthor took another sip. Glanced at the two way mirror. Then back at Alex.

There was something savage in her gaze. “Surprised Supergirl isn’t here as backup.”

Alex popped a knuckle, the sound strangely violent in the silence.

“It can’t be that awful little martian in charge. It identifies as a male doesn’t it?”

Popping her thumb knuckle was loudest. And most satisfying.

“The detective maybe? I’ve heard you’re fond of her.”

She moved on to her pinkie. The pop was never as satisfying, and always took more work.

Lillian Luthor suddenly feigned being scandalized. “Don’t tell me Eliza’s disappeared. What will her husband say?”

The door was open before Alex was even out of her chair, J’onn's hand, a grip like steel, on her shoulder before she could even be across the table.

He dragged her out, Luthor’s amused little laugh trailing after them.

“Calm down,” he said, pushing her further from the door, but giving her the space to pace. “Neither of you are of use to this investigation if you kill her.”

“She knows where Kara is.”

“We _think_ she does.”

“We stop Cadmus and Kara immediately goes missing? She knows J’onn.”

He sighed.

“Did you see anything? From out here?”

He shook his head. “That woman’s trained to hide her thoughts. I can’t even get a read on how she likes her coffee.”

Alex threw her hands up. “So we’re wasting our time.” She started pacing again.

J’onn just crossed his arms and watched.

Which made it worse, because she _knew_ he was being the patient one so she could be the angry one. She _knew_ he was trying to help and had every agent available out looking for Kara. But this was their one solid lead and Alex wanted to punch the lead in her big stupid face.

“Any luck yet?” Mon-El appearing at the door didn’t make things any better. Not with all his anxious energy and the way his very attractive mouth hung open.

God! Why did the handsome idiot jerks always fall for Kara?

“None,” Alex said.

Mon-El stepped further into the room. Glanced at the glass. “Should I talk to her?”

J’onn almost looked amused. “And say what?”

“I have my ways,” Mon-El said defensively.

“Isn’t she a little old for you,” Alex asked. She couldn’t help it. It was reflex by this point.

Mon-El scowled. “I’m practically as strong as Kara and that woman’s defenseless.”

“You want to intimidate her?”

He nodded.

Alex…Alex considered it. Kara had said he’d turned into a bookie’s enforcer when she left him to his own devices. So he had to have a bruiser bone in there somewhere under all those J.Crew good looks.

“Neither of you are going in there,” J’onn announced, as if he’d read both her and Mon-El’s minds. (He insisted he never did, but sometimes his suppositions were _too_ on the nose.)

Mon-El started to protest and J’onn shook his head. “You want to help so much Mon-El, I’ve got aliens that need apprehending, and your muscle would go a long way.”

“I didn’t come up here to hunt aliens. I came to find Kara.”

“I appreciate the offer, but the city and DEO are both down a Supergirl. Right now you're of better use out there, and you," his gaze settled on Alex, "are better use to us after you've had a few hours of sleep."

She shook her head, fidgeting from one foot to the other. "I'm not gonna just go to sleep while Kara's out there," she glared through the mirror at Luthor. "While they might have her."

J'onn was cooler than a human. It's something Alex should have noticed years ago. A hint of what he was and was not, but she'd never noticed it when he was Hank Henshaw.

Now she noticed it every time. His skin was cool with just enough heat beneath. Like he'd just come in from the cold. One hand settled on her shoulder, the cool touch immediately present despite the thin sweater between the two of them. "Go home Alex. Kara needs a sister that's rested. In fact," he looked back up at Mon-El, who was still standing there with chest puffed out and an irritated look on his face. "You want to help so badly Mon-El? Make sure she gets some sleep."

Alex walked out of the room as quickly as she could without running, brushing past Mon-El and appreciating that he had the courtesy to be pushed back by her shoulder.

Then the asshole followed her.

"I don't actually need you to babysit me," Alex said over her shoulder.

"I'm not babysitting you,” he said. “I’m in."

She turned around. "What?"

He jogged closer, looking like an eager little puppy. "You're going to look for Kara aren't you? Whatever you're doing to find her?” He nodded like a man making some big great proclamation. “I’m in."

"Me too."

Alex was grateful she couldn't fly, because she probably would have shot straight into the ceiling. As she wasn’t invulnerable either that would have hurt.

She spun around to see Winn noisily eating a bag of pork rinds. "When did you get here?"

"I was coming to check on the interrogation--you're going rogue?"

"No," Alex said at the same time Mon-El said "Yes."

Winn popped another rind into his mouth. "You should probably settle on a story."

She closed her eyes. Took a breath. "We are not going rogue. I am going to go get some sleep. Mon-El is taking me, because apparently he suddenly developed the urge to take and follow orders."

Winn actually looked confused. Like what Alex had just said didn’t make perfect sense. “So wait. We’re not going rogue to find Kara? We're just going to--"

"That's what I said," Mon-El interrupted. Then he looked around the hallway, averted his eyes from the curious agents coming out of a conference room. "We can't just sit by and wait for Cadmus to do something."

"I'm not," Alex snapped. "And," she started before Winn could chime in, “I’m not going rogue either. I'm going to Kara’s to make sure no one missed anything. Then I’m going to try and close my eyes for ten minutes so, in a sleep delirious state, I don’t murder either one of you. After that I will be tracking down every single Cadmus agent that has ever set _foot_ in National City. And I will talk to them.”

“And I will help,” Mon-El declared.

“And he will help.”

“So,” Winn looked from Alex to Mon-El, “we’re going rogue then.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. We’re going rogue.”

***

It was probably a testament to how tired Alex was that she wasn’t completely terrified by Mon-El of Daxam driving her 1996 Jeep Cherokee. Like Kara he drove too fast, and rode on people’s bumpers, and seemed to think brakes could stop a car as quickly as he could.

Alex rested her chin on her hand and watched the city go by. Ran over the last conversation she’d had with Kara, the last look she’d had of her apartment, that last confrontation with Lillian Luthor.

She tried not to think about an exhausted Kara flying a wounded Mon-El back to the DEO. Tried not to think of the harried look both of them had carried after escaping Cadmus.

Tried not to think about the horrors no doubt running through Mon-El’s head—if he was capable of that breadth of imagination.

God. Alex was such a failure. Her sister was missing and she was sitting in the passenger seat of her own car, completely worthless.

“Dime for your thought?”

“It’s a penny Mon-El.”

He nodded. “Right. What are you thinking about?”

“Probably the same thing you are.”

“Kara’s strong. If anyone can fight them it’s her.”

“Thanks for the newsflash about _my_ sister.”

Mon-El flicked on the radio, switched to a reggaetón station, and immediately started humming along.

Guy had been on the planet a couple of months and was already fluent in as many languages as Alex.

Alex’s phone pinged.

“Did they find something?”

“No. It’s not—it’s not about that.”

It was about Maggie. Who had no idea Alex had been up for close to twenty-four hours. She was still texting like they were…okay, Alex had no idea what they were, but it involved emojis.

Maggie wanted to get drinks. Wanted to see Alex. Maybe wanted to kiss her.

And Alex was a worthless sister incapable of protecting Kara.

She clicked her phone screen off.

"Not answering the text?"

She shot Mon-El a dirty look.

The phone buzzed again. Maggie was telling her she saw that text read message. “Come on Danvers, don’t tell me you’re scared of a drink.”

“Who is ‘Maggie’ and why does she want to drink with you?”

“Are you _seriously_ reading my texts while you drive.”

“I have super fast reflexes, we’re fine. Who’s Maggie?”

Alex reminded herself that Mon-El was sensitive to lead. Which meant, if it ever got bad enough, she could throw on some lead knuckles and beat him until she felt better.

“Well,” he asked. Eyebrow raised.

“None of your business.”

“Ah.” He suddenly became focused on his driving. “A girl.”

“No.”

“Woman. Whatever. Do you want to mate with her?”

“What I want to do is forget this conversation is happening.”

“Females didn’t date females on Daxam.”

“Please stop.”

“Males dated males, but only older males dating younger males, and only after the older male had mated and had children.”

“I might _pay_ you to stop.”

“Krypton was much more lax. Did you know they recognized more than one gender? And most of them didn’t even consider sex? Like they don’t need to have it. Ever.”

“I know, grew up with Kara remember.” She leaned on the center console to give him her best smile. “Kind of makes me wonder why you’re so into her.”

He looked from the road to Alex and laughed. Like he really wanted what he was saying to be true. “I’m…I do not like Kara.”

Alex raised an eyebrow.

“Did—did she say something?”

Alex continued to stare.

"So," he coughed, pointedly trying to change the subject. "Maggie."

"How about you steer clear of talking about my crush and I'll steer clear of talking about yours."

"Crush...I don't--what does that mean."

"You know."

"You wish to dominate her?"

Maybe he didn't know.

"I expected more of you Alex, especially with how high and mighty you and Kara are."

"Is it an act or are you really this stupid Mon-El?”

He twisted his hands on the wheel. "I'm a lot of things."

"None of which are helpful."

"Okay, maybe I'm not the most helpful in a fight, but you know what I am good at? Women. Tell me about this Maggie and I will tell you how to woo her."

"I'm not doing that."

Her phone dinged again. Maggie saying she'd heard about the Luther transfer. "You're probably busy with LL. Text me when you're out?"

"She's clearly eager. That's a good thing."

Alex might have reached a point where she was too tired to threaten Mon-El again.

"It should be easy to seal the deal. You're very appealing in that sharp and scary way."

What did that even mean?

"Just tell her you protect the world from alien threats.”

"She already knows that."

"Tell her you're friends with Supergirl. That always works for me."

"She knows that too--what do you mean it always works?"

"I tell them I'm friends with Supergirl. They're always impressed."

"You...you tell your one night stands you know Supergirl?"

"Sometimes it's two nights."

Alex breathed through her nose. So she didn’t rage hyperventilate and pass out from lack of oxygen. “Mon-El, no one is supposed to know Supergirl. The whole point of her secret identity is to protect her and her friends."

"I'm practically invincible."

"And you've slept with half of National City! All you need is to fuck one Cadmus agent with that line. Then they follow you--"

It suddenly dawned on him. What had become glaringly obvious to Alex as soon as her said it. “Right back to Kara."

Alex was so angry she couldn't even slap him upside the head.

"Screw the original plan. We've got a bevy of woman who've made bad choices to look up."

***

Maggie was a suspicious person by nature. She got that. The one time she went to therapy in college she fully “owned” it. And in the years since she liked to think that she’d turned a personal flaw into a major asset, using her wariness of every single sentient creature on earth to make herself a damn fine police officer.

But being such a wary person hadn’t always been great for her relationships. It’d left her standoffish—lacking in trust. She’d guarded her heart to protect it from inevitable betrayal, and until Alex Danvers sauntered up to _her_ crime scene, she’d been cool with that.

But Alex had to go and make Maggie question her own nature. Made her go and try and be better. Be brave, and even reckless, where she used to be cautious. So it was a little bit of a slap in the face that Alex limited their contact to _texts_ after Maggie went to her apartment, confessed her feelings, and they spent many long wonderful hours making out like twenty somethings who didn’t have jobs in the morning.

Two days went by and they’d been filled with a lot of friendly excuses via text and one phone conversation where a terse Alex told her she’d call her back.

Showing up at Alex’s door with pizza and beer (it had worked once before!) didn’t help either. Instead she’d eaten half the cold pizza in her car and left the beer in the kitchen at the station.

A little hurt and a lot miffed on day three Maggie drove straight over to the DEO, where security refused to let her in and people, many of whom didn’t know there was a secret government organization on the top few floors, eyed her nervously.

“I’ve got this,” some cheery sounding guy said just before Maggie pulled out her badge and started making demands.

Then he snatched Maggie by the arm and dragged her away from the guard station. He was the short one she’d seen the one time with Alex at the bar. James? No. That was the tall one. Schwinn?

Winn!

“What are you doing here,” he said in a harsh whisper.

“I need to see Danvers.”

He looked surprised by that. “She’s busy—“

“She’s dodging my calls.”

He rolled his eyes. “She’s not dodging your calls. She’s just busy.” The surprise look—which resembled indigestion on most people—returned. “With work.”

“Half her work is with me so I’m finding that a little hard to believe.”

“It’s the truth. Something—“ he glanced around the lobby. “Something came up. Okay? She’s one of the few people that can help.”

“What happened? Is everything all right?”

“Sure,” he squeaked.

Winn did not strike Maggie as the kind of guy who could keep a secret. She was pretty sure that if she pressed he’d fold like a quesadilla. And if they hadn’t been in the very public lobby of a very busy building she probably would have done just that.

Instead she jammed her hands in her pockets and shrugged like she was totally fine with his big fat lie. “Just tell her I was looking for her? Yeah?”

He nodded solemnly. “I will.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Supergirl right?”

He glanced. “What—why would you say that?”

“She was MIA all yesterday and that new guy Guardian seemed to be picking up all her slack.”

“Oh that was…I mean even superheroes deserve a break right? Especially, you know, with the holiday?”

She narrowed her eyes but nodded. “Right. Tell Alex I stopped by.”

He gave her a dorky two finger salute and darted to the turnstile, nearly dropping his key card as he went.

Yeah. Maggie was a suspicious person by nature, but she was pretty damn sure that in this case it was warranted.

***

Her next stop could have been Alex’s apartment, again. But it was the middle of the day, so she did what a good detective would do when involved in a missing persons case. She focused on the family.

Alex was suspiciously avoiding her calls, but her sister was some smart little reporter and CatCo Media was an easy place to strong arm her way into with a wave of her badge. Security had gone lax since Cat Grant herself had wandered off to climb mountains and find herself. All Maggie needed was her credentials and a healthy dose of swagger.

Until she got up to the floor that featured the investigative journalism unit and found Alex’s other friend, James, waiting for her by an incredibly large fuchsia statue of a jungle cat.

He grinned and pointed a finger at her in a way that would have been devilishly handsome if she were into guys. “You’re trespassing.”

“Not if I’m on official police business and have probable cause.” She sounded blustery to her own damn ears.

He tilted his head and kept smiling. It was insufferably charming.

“Okay,” she said, “technically this isn’t work related.”

“Any reason you’re here, in my building, without permission?”

“Your building?”

He pointed to a huge office at the end of the floor. “Interim head of CatCo Media.”

Well. Shit. “Alex didn’t mention that.”

“It was in the papers. And the blogs. And Twitter. My mom even shared it on Facebook.”

“Yeah, I haven’t logged onto the internet since AfterEllen shit the bed.”

He shrugged like he actually knew what she meant. “So what’s up?”

“I need to talk to Alex’s sister.”

“That’s gonna be a problem. I assigned her to a big undercover story Saturday. She’s out of pocket for the time being.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Saturday? That’s interesting, because that’s about when Alex stopped returning my calls.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Unrelated. I’m sure.”

She stepped closer, having to crane her neck to look up at him. It was a habit she’d picked up, often being the smallest one in the room she couldn’t rely on her size to intimidate suspects like her coworkers. Instead she relied on her bravado. Wigging them out by acting like she didn’t care they had a foot on her.

“You’re a better liar than your friend Winn,” she said.

“Everyone’s a better liar than Winn—well accept Kara.”

“Who conveniently disappeared at the same time her devoted sister went text only in our relationship.”

“Could be unrelated.” He tilted his head. “Maybe you and Alex had a fight.”

She laughed. “We definitely did not have a fight.”

“I don’t know what to tell you man, but hey, if I talk to her I’ll tell her you stopped by.” He leaned down, more friendly than intimidating, despite his bulk. “I’ll even leave out the part about you sneaking up 40-plus floors to stalk her sister.”

“You’re a real stand up guy.”

“Superman said the same thing about me.”

It wasn’t until she was back on the elevator and on her way down that she realized who James was.

James _Olsen_. As in Jimmy Olsen. As in Superman’s best friend.

God, Alex was so wrapped up in that crew she’d probably done Thanksgiving with the super friends.

***

That afternoon Supergirl and a bevy of DEO agents, sans Alex, helped Maggie with the arrest of something large, alien, and an alarming shade of yellow.

Maggie was grateful for the assist, not least because the thing seemed to exude slime and she really didn’t want to find out how that slime reacted to human skin, but also because at the end, as agents started cleaning up slime and wrapping the unconscious alien in plastic sheeting she got a full minute of face time with the hero of National City.

“Thanks for the assist,” she told Supergirl.

She seemed to only half notice Maggie was there. “No problem Detective,” she coughed, “Sawyer.”

“You okay?”

“Long day.”

If it didn’t defy logic Maggie would have thought Supergirl looked like she had indigestion.

“Yeah? Nice to have you back. You’ve been a little MIA since that bomb blew up over the city the other day.”

Supergirl winced. “You noticed that.”

“Detective you know. Always detecting.”

“Well, thank you.” She stood up straighter. “It’s always very nice to see such a responsible citizen.”

She seemed to gather herself to fly away and Maggie hurried forward. “Look I don’t want to bug you, being Supergirl and everything, but you and Alex Danvers, you’re friends right?”

“That is…yes?”

“She kind of disappeared on me and I just want to make sure—is everything okay?”

Supergirl smiled. “I’m sure everything is fine.”

“Have you seen her?”

Supergirl stood even taller. “Certainly Detective. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a city in need of protection.”

She burst into the air without a goodbye, or a sunny smile, or giving off that happy vibe she gave off even when she was cranky with Maggie after learning she’d turned Alex down.

Something was definitely up.

Besides the superhero in the air.

***

Since joining the DEO Alex had experienced a lot of exhausting days and sleepless nights. That one week she was dropped into a forest a hundred miles from civilization, with nothing but a knife, and told to make it back alive. The time she had to hunt a nocturnal alien through a sewer all alone. Kara’s Red Kryptonite phase.

This was worse. Not just because her sister was still missing and presumably in the hands of Cadmus, but because Alex’s best hope of finding her sister was visiting every single creature Mon-El had slept with since arriving on earth.

His list was extensive, and shockingly not limited to women and female presenting aliens.

“New culture, I thought I should explore,” he said around a mouthful of French fries.

They were at a Big Belly Burger, he consuming four full sized meals and her consuming half a pot of coffee so strong it might have melted a Daxamite’s insides.

“Daxamites,” he reached for his milkshake with the hand not full of French fries, “have healthy appetites.”

She’s lost count of how many days she’d been working with Mon-El but she was also so worn out she’d long ago lost the ability to snipe or insult him. Now she just settled on judging him with looks Kara’s old boss Cat Grant would have been proud of.

Her phone dinged and she drew it out of her back pocket.

“The woman you keep ignoring?”

“No, Winn.” She squinted at the text, exhaustion having long ago ruined her ability to focus on tiny words on her screen well. “Maggie tried interrogating J’onn pretending to be Kara at a crime scene this afternoon. Winn and James’s interceptions earlier didn’t work.”

“Told you, that female has feelings for you Alex. She can’t just shut them off.”

“Okay, once again, calling a human woman female is kind of offensive and dehumanizing.”

“You should call her.”

“And tell her what? My sister’s been kidnapped and I’m stuck looking for her with her crappy Daxamite pet?”

“Is pet a euphemism for romantic foil?”

“No.”

He ate another wad of French fries.

“You know.” He dabbed them in a disgusting mixture of honey, mustard, and ketchup. “I didn’t get a chance to tell the people I cared about how I felt before Daxam was destroyed.”

“You’re being manipulative.”

He shrugged. “Sure. But honest too. My world is gone Alex. All that’s left is a lot of guilt and Kara, who isn’t even from Daxam, she just knows about it because of a millennia old blood feud.”

“Is that why you like her?”

“It helps. And she believes in me, which is a new and unfamiliar feeling.”

“Not Mr. Popularity on Daxam?”

“I was an asshole on Daxam—“

“I though you were a noted bodyguard to the prince.”

“His assholeness rubbed off,” he said with that little annoying grin of his. “Anyways I regret a lot of the things I did back home, and that I didn’t do. But mainly?” Mon-El seemed serious suddenly. All the schoolboy charm and smarm evaporating, and leaving something haunted behind. Old and wary like only Kara and J’onn could be. “I regret loving people and not telling them.”

The way he said people… “Your prince.”

He cleared his throat. “You have a chance with this detective that I’ll never get with who I cared about Alex.”

“Yeah, but I don’t…I barely know Maggie. I can’t love her.”

“But you can be honest with her, instead of hiding behind Kara like you seem to do every time the world threatens to give you a personal life.”

“Right. I can be honest.” She finished her coffee, wadded her napkin up, and choked it in the cup. “Where exactly did that get you Mon-El? Because from where I’m sitting your honesty helped get Kara kidnapped.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Only it is. You and me? Everyone who knows her secret? We are automatically obligated, from the moment we know, to protect her. To keep her safe from Cadmus, and rogue aliens, and evil Kryptonians trying to remake Earth in their image. That’s our job.”

“No, it’s a burden Alex, like when people used to tell the prince their lives didn’t matter compared to his. I may not have had sleepovers with Kara since I was fourteen, but I really don’t think she’d want that for people she cares about. Why do you think she’s so bad at keeping her secret?”

“Because she trusts people will be better.” Alex leaned in. “But you and I, we know that’s not true. Don’t we?”

Mon-El didn’t respond, his sullen look and sudden loss of appetite admission enough. They cleaned up their mess and went back to the Jeep, Mon-El driving while Alex closed her eyes and tried to not think about her little sister, still in Cadmus hands. Still lost.

He spoke again at a stop light, the red glow of the lamp shining on his face. “I’m trying to be better.”

“It’s not the same as being better.”

“I just…this world is hard. And different…and the only way I can breathe most days is when I look for some glimpse of what I used to have.”

Alex had been there once too. When her dad was gone and Kara was happy and in college and Alex’s life spiraled nearly out of control. “Grief explains the bad decisions we make. But it doesn’t excuse them.”

“You’re one of those people that has an answer for everything aren’t you?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“God I hate you.”

“Well, once we find Kara you can go back to partying and avoiding responsibilities and I can go back to pretending you don’t exist except for when you show up for holidays and make moon eyes at Kara.”

“I don’t make ‘moon eyes.’”

“Oh yeah. Big moon eyes. So big I can see Neil Armstrong’s boot print on your sclera.”

“I don’t even know that means.”

“Winn knows about your crush and he has the emotional empathy of a tadpole.”

“What—Winn is a super empathetic guy!” He pulled the car over in front of a fashionable craftsman style house with pink shingles and bright green trim. “We’re here. So let’s just leave all the jokes about my crushes in the car. Also the one you keep doing about my inability to satisfy a sexual partner.”

Alex unlatched her seatbelt. “I can’t make that promise.” She probably could have.

“What about not showing them the list of my conquests? That would be helpful.”

“I don’t show them the list.”

“You give the number of people on it.”

“I’m trying to be informative.”

“And telling them to get tested for STDs?”

“That’s just a public health concern. Which you should care about if you put anything in that Voldarian’s orifices.”

“What’s wrong with a Voldarian’s orifices? I happen to like them.”

“They basically excrete space syphilis. From all of them.”

“You think I have space syphilis?”

“I’m not looking in your pants to find out.”

Mon-el’s knuckles banged sharply against the door. “I don’t want to look in your pants either,” he grumbled.

The door swung open to reveal Cindy, last name “I honestly can’t remember and please stop looking at me like that Alex.” She was cute, blond, and undoubtedly human.

She looked quickly from Alex to Mon-El and back. “Mike,” she finally said.

He nodded, standing tall and lowering his voice a hair, “Cindy.”

Alex drew her badge. “Hello ma’am. I’m an agent with the FBI? We just wanted to have a chat.”

“Just a quick one,” Mon-El said with a wink.

Cindy blushed and held the door open wider, not even bothering to do something smart like ask for Alex’s name.

Instead she looped her arm around Mon-El’s and guided them towards her living room. “I had no idea you’re with the FBI Mike.”

“New arrangement,” he said, patting Cindy on the arm and smiling like the girl was his whole world.

“Just consulting,” Alex said, trailing behind. She glanced at the photos on the wall. Big happy family.

Noted the— “Formal dining room. I didn’t think anyone under the age of forty had one.”

“I felt like it,” Cindy said, smile not quite reaching the eyes.

She ushered them into a living room that smelled…stale. It was, at least from Alex’s point of view, alarmingly pristine. Her eye caught another photo.

Different family.

“Cindy, I can’t help but notice there are a lot of photos in this house, but none of you.”

She was accustomed to things moving fast. Having a sister that could break the sound barrier saw to that. But Alex didn’t even have time to draw her gun.

There’s a glint of metal and a flash of red and then Mon-El was falling to his knees as Cindy charged Alex, bloody knife suddenly in hand.

She darted back from the first few slashes. Gun forgotten she had to focus on keeping the the knife, lead-based judging by Mon-El’s blood on its edge, from biting into her.

But one smart slash caught her palm, pain bright and fiery numbing her entire hand. Cindy wasn’t expecting the score so Alex pressed her sudden advantage, getting in a good punch to Cindy’s solar plexus.

She leapt back as Cindy’s knife flailed wildly. Grabbed a photo off the wall and Frisbee’d it towards the woman.

One. Two. Cindy batted them away. Lunged with the knife again, sure and focused. Alex dodged. Grabbed Cindy’s arm and made to pull her to pull her forward, off balance and directly into Alex’s knee.

But only one hand was working right. Alex’s blood streaked across Cindy’s arm as her wounded hand slipped.

The fight seemed to pause, for just the scantest of moments, as both women realized what had happened.

Then Cindy smashed her forehead into Alex’s nose.

Stars and more pain.

But Alex couldn’t stay and suffer through it. She backed away. Blindly reaching for some kind of weapon with her bad hand while going for her gun with her good one. Why did she have to get her right hand injured? Why did her gun have to be on her right side? Why was there nothing else between her and what was clearly a Cadmus assassin?

She saw Cindy stalking towards her again, face grim determination, knife tossed casually into her other hand. “It’s not personal,” Cindy said.

Alex quickly shouldered off her jacket and wrapped it between her hands. She bounced on the balls of her feet, waiting.

Cindy charged.

Alex could take her. She knew it. She’d killed Kryptonians and Hellgramites. Trained Supergirl herself. She wasn’t just lucky, Alex was _good_ in a fight.

But there was no chance to prove it.

A flash of blue and Cindy was being smashed into the brick fireplace.

Alex couldn’t make out much. Mon-El was pressed against the woman, blood streaming from a gash on his neck, darkening his blue jacket.

He seems to writhe against Cindy a moment, a sickening squelch—knife into meat—sounded in the room. Over and over again.

Alex could just barely make out the knife, bloodier than ever. Then Mon-El was flinging Cindy into the wall with all the strength of a Daxamite and the woman collapsed. Less person and more sack of flesh in the shape of a person.

Mon-El staggered a moment before collapsing. His front littered with stab wounds and his skin glossy and pale.

Alex stumbled to the ground beside him.

Her first instinct was to stop the bleeding. But how? There were too many wounds and not nearly enough of her jacket to help. She tried anyways.

“Why,” she heard herself say. Not a word of comfort or praise. Just the first thing that slipped into her head.

Why.

He was twitching from blood loss. Choking too. All smirk and bravado gone in a gasp.

“I’m trying.” Speckles of blood had turned his teeth pink. “To be better.”

***

Maggie had one last course of action. Texting hadn’t worked. Calling. Stopping by her place, her sister’s office, or the DEO. All that was left was going to the belly of the beast.

She’d done it before. Ventured over to Kara Danvers place, risked death by stink eye, just to see Alex. She could do it again.

Though it felt, almost, like she really was a stalker this time. If she hadn’t had the vivid memory of Alex’s gasping in her ear as she pressed her lips to Alex’s throat then she might have just given up.

But she knew, for a fact, that they had something, and she knew, for a fact, that something was up.

So that night, after paperwork about the yellow goo alien and a quick round of liquid courage with the boys, she drove to Kara Danvers's apartment.

Walking up the stairs she started immediately regretting her decision to drive all the way over to the other side of National City. Mainly because she couldn’t do much beyond knock on the door and beg someone, anyone, to open up.

It was about as dumb a plan as showing up at Alex’s door and knocking for an hour and then dozing on the floor in front of the door (her ass was _still_ sore from that bonehead move).

However coming up the stairs and rounding the corner she could honestly say she’d never, in a million years, have excepted to find what she found.

Lena Luthor, famous billionaire, was furtively unlocking Kara’s door with a key on a chain of keys that looked suspiciously like the ones a super in a big building like Kara’s would have carried.

Lena paused as soon as she saw Maggie. Her eyes darted down to the badge prominent on Maggie’s belt and she smiled. “I can explain.”

Maggie chose not to speak, because whatever the excuse she really wanted to hear it.

“I’m a friend.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow.

“A good friend. Maybe. I don’t know. But Kara’s been ignoring me since Saturday. Just completely ghosting me. At first I thought it was because my only friend in National City hated me.” She laughed.

Maggie did not.

“And then I reached out to her employers who informed me she’d suddenly gone on an assignment and something didn’t sit right.”

“So you stole keys?”

“So I had a lovely two hour long tea party with her landlady, a charming woman who remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor. She lent me the keys. To check.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes.

“We can go talk to her if you like?”

“I’m inclined to say yes, but Kara’s not the only Danvers sister missing at the moment so how about you go ahead and open that door.”

“Really?”

Maggie nodded at the door and Lena jumped to open it. She was much more...fidgety than Maggie would have expected. Almost a nerd.

Maybe it was Alex and her sister. They seemed to collect nerds like those stupid cards Maggie’s brother collected until he was old enough to know better.

Supergirl was invulnerable and could punch through walls and the Danvers sisters were nerd magnets.

Wait.

Did that make Maggie a nerd?

Shit. Lena Luthor was still babbling like if she talked enough Maggie would forget she’d caught her in the middle of a B&E. She was about to point that out when she noticed a bloody wad of fabric lying on the floor and a dark form curled up on the couch in Kara Danvers's living room.

She called Kara’s name. Then Alex’s.

The figure shot up, the unmistakable glint of a firearm in their hands, and because Maggie Sawyer was a damn good detective she drew too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any names misspelled are intentional.
> 
> Unless spellcheck auto changed Luthor to Author again. That's an accident and deeply irritating.

Lena figured it out when she was fourteen. She had an inkling long before that. A certainty of the knowledge she never interrogated. There was something very different about knowing something in the bones and saying it out loud.

But when she was fourteen, standing by her father's beside, listening to the reedy rasp of his last breath, Lena understood it implicitly.

She was alone.

There was no knight come from fairytales, no great love from the romances, not even a friend like in her favorite books.

It was Lena against the world.

She learned to be comfortable with that. Told herself it was all right enough that she believed the lie.

It was only late at night, when reality would creep in through the cracks, that the shocking hurt of her existence would strike upon her heart like a brand.

Tears only came a handful of time, and only in the dark.

Meeting Kara Danvers did not change that. Lena wasn't a fool enough to romanticize their interactions.

Kara Danvers was merely an acquaintance that smiled like Lena's existence wasn't unbearable.

But that was enough.

Someone who saw more than a name and a legacy was enough for Lena to call Kara friend.

And she thought that perhaps Kara saw it too. That was why she invited Lena out for drinks. Just the two of them. On a day that would be considered a holiday for a workaholic like Kara.

That was the real trick of it all. Kara showed up in Lena's office on a holiday and invited her away.

Then she ghosted her.

She might have chalked it up to the luck of the Luthors, but she called Kara's office that Monday and was told the very junior reporter had, quite suddenly, been called away on an assignment. "Came directly from James Olsen himself," the assistant on the phone said.

For someone as naturally suspicious as Lena was it was a red flag.

So she left work early, drove over to Kara's apartment, muttering something about it becoming a habit, and knocked.

Kara didn't answer.

Which was when Lena did something very invasive but that felt, in the moment, like it was absolutely vital to do.

She got a copy of Kara's keys so she could break in.

Again.

It was not what a friend would do, nor what a new friend would expect. But she was sure that if she didn't do it then the world would end.

Curious how the heart works so independently of the mind isn't it?

That was how she found herself caught by a cop. And that was how she found herself standing in a dark apartment and stuck between two women with guns drawn.

The heart was stupid.

***

"STOP."

Lena Luthor needed to get out of Maggie's damn way. But she was standing between Maggie and the figure by the couch. A stupidly tall barrier between Maggie and any bullets.

"Please," Lena said, "just let me turn on the lights before you shoot each other."

Maggie kept the barrel of her gun pointed at the figure, but she readjusted her grip on the handle.

"I really don't think any of us want either gun going off, so just let me--"

Light filled the room.

Warm and friendly. Inviting light.

Which made the sight before her all the more incongruous.

It was Alex, flecks of blood like ruddy mud on her face. Grey shirt stained dark. One hand in a bright white bandage. The other holding her gun in a white knuckles grip which better revealed the blood dried under her fingernails.

"Oh my god," Maggie heard Luthor utter, the devastation in her tone matched only by the sinking feeling in Maggie.

Alex looked...hunted. Her cheeks sallow and bruise-like splotches under her eyes. She looked frantically from Maggie to Luthor and back again before recognition seemed to hit.

Her gun dipped.

Maggie's had already come to rest by her side, as if moved by an unconscious hand.

"This was not what I expected," Luthor said.

Alex seemed to straighten up, then sag again, before warily pulling herself up rigidly. "What are you--what are you doing here?" She was held so straight Maggie was sure she'd break in a breeze.

"I was worried about you," she said gentle as she could. Her gun returned to her holster. "Couldn't figure out if you'd ghosted me or been kidnapped."

Alex looked wounded by Maggie's half joke.

Luthor chimed in. “I have a, uh, similar reason. Only I was looking for your sister."

Alex had nice lips. Thin but sure. She knew how to use them. How to press them against another girl's and elicit a moan.

She chewed on that very nice lower lip then. Her eyes darted away. Gun set back on the table next to its holster. "She's out.”

"That was the line CatCo gave as well. You can understand," Luthor motioned to Alex's state, "how I'm finding that excuse difficult to believe."

Maggie took a careful step towards Alex, and when she made no effort to run Maggie moved even closer. "Is it her blood?"

Alex looked down at her hands. Flicked a fleck of blood away from a cuticle, and laughed. “No. No this is a friend’s.”

She looked back up at Maggie. “You should go.”

“Which friend? Winn? James?”

“Someone else.” She looked over Maggie’s shoulder at Lena and then back to Maggie. “Seriously. This—you’re better off going.” The “while you have the chance” was heavily implied.

“I think you know I can’t do that,” Maggie said softly. Now she was close enough to reach out for Alex. Provide some kind of consoling touch. Maybe a hug. Her fingers itched to do it.

But Lena Luthor was still there, equally dissuaded. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you in your sister’s apartment, sitting on her couch in the dark, covered in blood?”

“That’s not your business.”

“This is me making it my business. Where’s Kara?”

“I told you—“

“She’s out. I know. And I said I don’t believe you. Given your state, and given what I know about your sister’s incredibly capacity for care and concern, I think there’s more to her absence. Wouldn’t you?”

Jesus.

Alex sighed. She started to run her bad hand through her hair but seemed to catch herself at the last moment. “She's gone."

It was said with a kind of finality usually consigned to death.

"What's that supposed to mean," Luthor asked. Like she was stubbornly refusing to hear what Alex was implying.

"I'm saying Cadmus took her."

"Impossible. My mother’s in jail."

"And you expected that to stop them?”

Lena Luthor was clearly stricken by the news. For a ruthless captain of industry she had a very open face. Every hurt carved onto her countenance.

Maggie almost felt pity for her.

She caught the way Luthor’s grip on her purse turned white knuckled.

“I—I should go,” she said.

And Alex somehow managed to sneer with a nod of her head.

Then they were alone and as much as Maggie itched to grab Alex and hold her close and tell her it would be okay, she couldn’t actually move to do it.

Alex was less the woman who’d pressed Maggie against a counter and kissed her until her lips bruised, and more a caged animal, pacing in her own skin.

“Do you really think they took your sister to get at Lena Luthor?”

Alex sighed. “No. Shit, I was mean to her wasn’t I?”

“Well you weren’t friendly.”

Alex smiled weakly at the joke. “I’m sorry. I’m just—“

But no words came out.

So Maggie nodded and said “I know” even if she really didn’t.

Alex sagged and stumbled back onto the couch. Carefully, quietly, Maggie joined her. She didn’t sit close enough that they could touch. Instead leaving a wide gulf between them.

Alex picked at more blood dried on her hands. “I should have called.”

“Yeah, I’m still a little confused as to why you didn’t bring the police in on this—or me in particular, a detective with years of experience in missing persons.”

“I just had to find her.”

“Cops help with that.”

“Not with…Cadmus is different.”

“Because they tried to kill every alien in National City? Or because of their Max Head rip off videos?”

“They took my dad more than ten years ago.”

Oh.

“Is that,” Maggie leaned in just a little. “Is that why you joined the DEO?”

She laughed. “No. Different reason. But I think he, and what we did the other day, are why they have Kara?”

“Revenge.”

“And she doesn’t deserve it.”

Maggie wanted to point out that no one _really_ deserved revenge. That it was better as a literary device than a desire that motivated people. But the way Alex said it distracted Maggie. Because she said it like someone _did_ deserve it. Maybe someone covered in the dried blood of a friend and looking like they hadn’t slept in a few days.

That itching desire to pull Alex close and hold her until all the self loathing and fear drained out of her returned.

But before she could make what would have been a profoundly compassionate move the door opened and that little Winn guy stumbled in.

“Ran into Lena Luthor on the way in. Girl is piiiiiiiiissed—oh my god people.”

He clutched his bag of take out food to his chest and looked at Maggie with fear.

She gave a hapless finger wave.

“She’s fine,” Alex said. “And Winn this is Maggie.”

“The detective,” he half shouted. “You—you introduced Alex to that cool bar that we all went to…until more than half the patrons were murdered.”

Maggie had worked very hard to not think about the bar and what had happened there. “Yeah, those were actually friends of mine.”

He blushed. “Sorry. My mouth. Words. Not good.”

“Winn,” Alex sounded pained.

“Right. Food! I grabbed strudel because, well I don’t actually know why. The bakery was open and it smelled nice. Also clothes. From your apartment. And I talked to John. Mon-El’s out of surgery. So, you know, he might live.”

She took the bags offered and dropped them on the chair opposite the couch. “Thanks.”

He slapped his hands together. “Yeah. No problem.”

He made no effort to move, instead awkwardly standing there looking from Alex to Maggie.

Alex raised an eyebrow.

“John told me to keep an eye on you,” he explained.

“Pretty sure there’s more important things you could be doing.”

“Oh way more important. But that last time you were left alone you nearly lost your hand and Mon-El got stabbed like fifteen times. So…” he shrugged.

“I can watch her,” Maggie offered.

“I don’t…” he glanced at Alex. “That seems like a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re her friend and might not try to stop her from doing something stupid.”

She didn't want to point out that he seemed like a friendly doormat for Alex too. “Look. You clearly have important, whatever to do and she clearly needs to sleep. So you go do your stuff and I’ll stay here and kneecap her if she tries to leave before morning.”

“How?”

“She has a collapsible baton Winn.” Alex sounded exhausted.

He studied her like he was looking for the baton.

“I’m just gonna sleep,” Alex said. “I promise.”

“Because it’s my butt on the line,” Winn said. “So—“

“She won’t leave this apartment until the sun is up,” Maggie said.

He looked wary, but clutched his little computer bag. “Okay. Fine." He softened then. "Get some sleep yeah? Kara will kill us both if anything happens to you."

***

She ate the strudel with her bad hand, flakes catching on the bandage and buttery residue clinging to her fingers.

Maggie was in Kara's kitchen looking for glasses and something to drink. "Isn't your sister a writer?"

"Journalist," Alex said absently.

"She's sure short on booze for one of those."

"Check the freezer."

Maggie wrenched it open and her face immediately brightened beatifically. "Holding out."

"Hiding it from me during Thanksgiving."

"Aw." She pulled out the half empty bottle of bourbon. "So...how rough _was_ Thanksgiving?"

"I got drunk enough that standing was hard and then tried to out myself at the dinner table."

Maggie had the good graces to chuckle like she'd been there herself. She poured a glass, but paused on the second one.

"Can you drink with your hand?"

"No painkillers yet. Still on a local." She flexed her hand as proof and Maggie winced.

"You're gonna feel that tomorrow."

Good.

She gulped half the bourbon down and Maggie wordlessly topped her off. "You want to talk about what happened today?"

"I screwed up and a guy nearly died." She hadn’t really made any kind of effort to clean up. J'onn had been so angry he'd packed her up and sent Winn home with her. No time for a shower to wash the blood off her face or a change of clothes to get out of jeans still stiff with Mon-El's blood.

"But it sounds like he's out of surgery. That's good right?"

She laughed. Finished off her glass and reached for the bottle.

But Maggie pulled it away and didn't even flinch when Alex made a pathetic whining noise in the back of her throat.

"You know what will make you feel better? A hot shower and a good night's sleep."

"How am I supposed to sleep when Kara's out there? Hurt? Alone?"

"Same way a cop sleeps when they're working a missing persons. You have to Alex. You're no use to her in the hospital or zombified because you haven’t shut your eyes in three days.”

She glowered, but pushed herself up off the couch anyways.

Everyone had told her sleep was important. Maybe they were right.

Maggie caught her by the elbow, voice as soft as her touch. "Come on, I got you." She seemed to tug until Alex was leaning against her and being guided to Kara’s bathroom.

She set Alex on the toilet and turned the shower on, the old pipes groaning as water rushed through them. Then she snatched a wash cloth off the pile by the hamper, ran it under the water, and carefully began working at the stains along Alex’s cuticles.

Her ministrations were gentle. Careful. Lips pursed in concentration and eyes narrowed with focus.

It was distractedly cute.

“So I’m actually pretty mad at you,” Maggie said.

That was decidedly less cute.

“Because I didn’t text you back.”

“Because you didn’t tell me your sister had been abducted.”

“It…”

She rubbed vigorously at dried blood rooted under Alex’s thumb. “Please tell me how calling a cop who’s been after Cadmus off and on for years was a bad idea?”

“I’m not good at the whole asking for help thing.”

“You had the friend who’s blood I’m cleaning off you.”

“He forced himself onto me—my investigation.”

“And if he hadn’t, what, you’d be the one stuck like a pig?”

She pulled her half clean hand away, balling it into a fist and setting it on her thigh. “It’s always been me and Kara. Since we were kids, you know?” Kara had been the one to hold Alex back, to temper her worst intentions. Jiminy Cricket on her shoulder saying yes, no, and maybe don’t try surfing at four in the morning when you’re still drunk and a little high Alex.

“I get it,” Maggie said. And Alex really wanted her to get it—really wanted to believe her. But Maggie was one of the most understanding and empathetic people Alex had ever met that wasn’t an actual empath. She got _everything_. Could put herself in any person’s shoes. Which meant she might have understood, but didn’t mean she actually approved or, really got _it_ , deep down. In her gut.

Maggie quickly wrapped her bandaged hand in a bag and patted her thigh. “Come on. You’ll feel better after a shower.”

“Gonna help me undress too?”

Maggie ducked her head and smiled in that way that could put butterflies in Alex’s stomach even when she was cold, tired, and so upset she could hardly see straight. “Nah. I’d rather the first time I see you naked be a little more pleasant. Maybe when you’re sister’s back, and we’re not sitting in her _very_ cold bathroom. Does she not have a heater?”

"She doesn’t notice temperature much. There’s a thermostat in the kitchen.”

“I’ll heat things up then. You get clean.”

Alex stripped out of her clothes slowly, working skin tight jeans, stiff with blood, down her thighs and over her calfs.

She tried not to think about the red brown stains streaked across her legs, and tried not to look in the mirror as she climbed into the shower. Clumps of hair dried together and there was a smear of blood across her face where she’d wiped at tears with wet hands.

God.

What a fucking mess.

She cranked the hot water up until her skin turned red under it, and the heat was nearly as bad as the burning in her eyes and the back of her throat.

Such a god damn mess.

The water ran dirty at first, slowly turning clear as she practically boiled herself alive under the spray.

The biggest fucking mess. Of a person! That was Alexandra Danvers.

She tried washing her hair one handed, but struggled to get the suds which she could get with two hands.

Soap, slick and bubble free ran down her face. Into her eyes.

And that was when she finally cried. Alone in a steaming hot shower.

She pressed her hot face into the cold tile and sobbed until she was too tired to stand.

When she finally crawled out of the bathroom, wrapped up in a zip up hoodie and pajama pants Winn had scrounged up, Maggie was waiting for her, big glass of water in hand, and Kara’s bed turned down and looking inviting.

Part of Alex didn’t want to sleep there. Wanted to preserve her sister’s space until she returned to reclaim it.

But a bigger part of her was too tired to be dramatic. She crawled onto the middle of the bed and murmured a thanks when Maggie handed her the water.

Maggie didn’t offer to curl up next to her and Alex had to admit she was grateful.

She’d spent the last two days (three?) with other people, affording her no time of her own to breathe. Curling up alone in a bed that smelled like her sister was just what she needed. No unfamiliar but welcome arms around her or the heat of another person at her back.

“I’ll just take the couch,” Maggie said, maybe slighted and a little awkward.

Alex just nodded and burrowed deeper under the covers.

***

If she was supposed to remember her dreams she didn’t.

***

Maggie woke up when the sky was still all lavender and peach and it took her way too long to remember where she was, and why she’d slept curled up in a ball on a very comfy couch (that was still definitely a couch).

Maggie was never going to be some badass soldier who could wake up and go at a moments notice. She was a cop, accustomed to using her head more than her hands, and she had to work through it all for a second until she remembered Alex and dried blood and strudel.

She pushed off the couch and started towards the bedroom, already illuminated by the glow of a lamp on a bedside tablet.

Alex was up and half dressed, currently stuck trying to get a flannel shirt on over the thick bandages wrapped around one hand.

But Maggie, being entirely too useless for her own good, was staring at Alex’s bare stomach.

If it had been a different day, different time, different woman, than Maggie would have stepped between those open legs and gently pushed Alex back until she was lying across the bed. Then she would have run her hands over warm, freckled skin, before chasing her touch with her tongue. Alex would have moaned and pulled her up her body to kiss her like the world was ending instead of the day just beginning and Maggie would have smoothly undone the buttons on Alex’s pants and slid her hand past the waist of her panties and caught her groan with her mouth.

Than they would have stayed in the bed until the sun was well past the horizon and they were both sweaty, sticky messes.

But it was the morning after Maggie found out Alex’s sister was missing, Alex was currently sitting on her missing sister’s bed, and all Maggie could do was try and ignore her own arousal and help Alex get her shirt on.

“You’re up early.”

Alex wagged the fingers on her bad hand as Maggie tugged the end of her shirt sleeve over it. “Painkillers wore off. Did I wake you?”

“No one sleeps a full eight hours on a couch, even one as comfy as your sister’s.”

“Sorry about that.”

Maggie couldn’t help noticing Alex didn’t apologize for not inviting her into her bed the night before. She chose to chalk that up to shock, or fear of being held and comforted in the bed of her missing sister.

Which to be fair to Alex, was totally valid.

Alex brushed past her buttoning her shirt one handed and looking around the apartment.

“Need something?”

“Phone. I keep my office key on the back.”

“I thought you were supposed to be resting?”

“I want to check on my friend.” She brightened at the sight of the strudel box, and pulled a piece out, shoving it in her mouth.

Maggie watched from the doorway between living space and bedroom. Arms crossed. “And how are you going to get there?”

“I can Uber,” Alex said. Crumbs went everywhere. She raised an eyebrow. “Or you can always take me.”

“I can, if I thought that was what was best for you.”

“You think you know what’s best for me?”

“I think I’ve been a cop a while now, and worked a lot more missing persons than you have.”

“So,” She dropped her strudel back on top of the open box, “what do you think is best for me?” Alex didn’t quite sneer.

Maggie unfolded her arms and grabbed her jacket off the back of the couch. “Going to the DEO nerd. Finish your strudel.”

***

Maggie made bad choices. Her dad said it, her mom shouted it, three ex-girlfriends parroted it, and Kate seemed to have tattooed it into Maggie’s very soul with a look.

Maggie made bad choices.

Kissing Alex Danvers had not been one. All the bad choices Maggie had made in life, one was bound to turn out good, that had been it.

Opting to help Alex after her sister disappeared. Slightly less good choice.

Namely because Maggie could barely take care of herself most days. Nurse maid plus baby gay mentor was asking a lot. But she was committed to it, because Alex needed someone and Maggie liked her.

A lot.

God she was an idiot full to the brim of bad choices and the potential for more.

Case in point.

She left Alex to check in on her stabbed friend, who looked suspiciously like an alien regular from the bar that was at the root of a space syphilis outbreak.

The Winn guy was around, as was John, another regular at the bar. Maggie read their presence near Alex, clearly a comfort, as her cue to find a nice chair to sit in and magazine to read.

But Maggie was full of bad choices.

So…she went and decided to explore a secure black ops government facility at the center of a giant office building in the middle of National City.

It was a bad idea.

Though, to be fair to Maggie, if they hadn’t wanted her exploring they would have required access codes or keycards to get around the facility.

Instead, presumably because gaining entrance required an armed escort or the ability to fly, once one was in one had full run of the place. So Maggie acted like she knew what she was doing and started nosing around.

That was how she learned the DEO had a black site detention center. And that was how she found M’gann M’orzz, a bartender from her favorite bar that had been missing for two weeks.

She and M’gann had always been…friendly. The bartender was less approachable than anyone else that worked at the bar. Aloof.

But she always had a smile for Maggie, and never complained when she ordered a Ramos gin fizz for a girl.

M’gann seemed as shocked to see Maggie as Maggie was to see her. She stood up and away from the thick glass partition between them. Tugged on a necklace around her neck.

“Nice digs,” Maggie said. “Lousy view though.”

M’gann glanced at the door and warily stepped closer to the glass. “What are you doing here?”

“Escorting a friend.” Maggie rapped on the partition with her knuckle. “Do I want to know why you’re in here?”

“Because I deserve to be.” It was said with too much conviction for Maggie's taste.

She raised an eyebrow. “Without trial?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you been in here?”

She shrugged. “When was the last time you saw me at the bar.”

“M’gann…”

“It’s fine, really.” The nod was more for M’gann than Maggie. “I…did some things before I came to Earth. And I’m not proud of them. This,” she looked around her cell, “is just me paying penance.”

“Thought the whole appeal of coming to Earth was to get away from who you used to be?” It was what half the aliens in the bar said. Earth, was close enough to other systems to make it an easy trip, but remote enough, backwards enough, to make it a backwater.

Maggie had always thought that kind of funny. Grew up and escaped a backwater town only to find out she lived on a backwater planet.

M’gann chuckled darkly. “There’s no escaping who we are Detective. Just burying it deep and hoping no one comes along with a shovel.”

“Right, but this isn’t paying penance M’gann. This is disappearing and never getting out. DEO hasn’t told a soul they have you, and I don’t think that’s gonna change any time soon.”

“This isn’t about the DEO.”

“They’re the ones holding you aren’t they?” She ran her hand through her hair, hands suddenly fidgeting with the need to _do_. “Look I’ve got pull with one of their top people. I talk to her. See if we can get you out of here.”

“Really, it’s not necessary Maggie.”

“How about a nice window at least? Visitation rights? There’s gotta be someone you’d like to talk to on the outside.”

“You were always good for a chat.”

“I was a regular at your bar—I don’t even know what kind of alien you are.”

M’gann went back to her uncomfortable looking cot and sat down on it with a heavy sigh. “Martian.”

“Like the green guy that’s friends with the Supers?” She’d only seen the green one in footage, but Alex had said a few things that hinted at her knowing the creature.

“Similar, technically he’s a Green Martian and I’m a White one.”

Maggie looked her up and down. “You’re shape shifters right?”

“We are.”

“So you could look like anyone.”

“And yet I choose to look like me.”

Maggie took a seat on the other side of the glass, pressing her back against it. “And live in a cage.”

M’gann sighed. “You probably wouldn’t believe me, but I do deserve this Maggie. The things I’ve done—this prison can’t even begin to make up for them.”

“And you could probably do even more good out there. If you’re like him that means you have the same powers right? You could go toe to toe with Supergirl.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Or toe to toe with any of the things that waltz into this city looking for her.”

“I didn’t come to Earth to be a vigilante.”

“No. You came to hide. Great job. But you really want to make up for whatever you did?” She looked over her shoulder. “Get out there and do something.”

M’gann didn’t seem convinced by Maggie’s speech. Just deeply annoyed, working her jaw as she studied Maggie.

Which Maggie probably deserved. She was a grumpy little detective. Not someone given to inspiring speeches.

The door at the other end of the room slid open, Alex and the big guy—John—striding in.

Alex looked worried. Like it had replaced the fatigue that still hung around her like cobwebs.

The big guy just looked…upset.

“This area’s off limits,” he growled.

“Just catching up with an old friend.” She hitched her thumb towards the glass. “M’gann and I go way back at the bar.”

“Years even,” M’gann said. She’d stood up and come closer, chin lifted defiantly. “She was knocking some common sense into me with human logic.”

The guy pointed at Maggie. “You leave.” Then at M’gann. “You, be quiet.”

Something about how he said it rankled Maggie. “You don’t get to talk to her that way—“

And suddenly the guy was just there, in Maggie’s space, looming over her, anger pulling on his features and almost, visibly, writhing just beneath his skin. He was a kind of furious Maggie had never touched.

It as only Alex’s hand on his arm that seemed to give him pause and keep him together. “John. Don’t.”

He took a deep breath, chest seeming to expand more than a human’s possibly could. His eyes were on M’gann, but he spoke to Alex. “Get her out of here.”

She nodded and reached for Maggie, but Maggie jerked away. “No. Not without the woman you’re holding illegally.”

He never took his eyes off M’gann. “I have every right to hold that _thing_ here.”

The contempt was acrid enough to leave a bad taste in Maggie’s mouth. Almost…too awful for run of the mill xenophobia. And Alex…Alex was definitely not the kind of person that would be so tender and careful with a xenophobe.

“You’re the green martian aren’t you.”

He looked stricken.

“Maggie,” Alex said her name in warning.

But Maggie, being a creature made up of bad choices, had to plow ahead. Hold him by the arm. It was like steel against her fingertips. Hard and terrifying and utterly inhuman. “Look I get she did something bad to you on some other planet? But that bill the president signed makes her a citizen of the United States, and that means you don’t get to hold her indefinitely like this. So you let her out, or I came back with a team and we pull her out.”

“You’re not doing that,” Alex said, neatly cutting through the tension building between Maggie and the big martian. “But you are giving me a minute to talk to M’gann and John alone. Wait outside.”

She started to protest.

Alex’s firm look suggested that would be a particularly _bad_ bad choice.

So Maggie stepped out of the room and leaned against the wall and waited.

She only felt a little chastised.

A little out of the loop.

A little alone.

Until the Winn guy stopped by and offered her orange juice. “You looked like you could use some vitamins.”

“How did you even know where I was?”

“Um. I’m like lord of the lair.” Guy was actually boasting. “I know where _everyone_ is.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Winn blushed. “Please never tell Alex I said that.”

She would absolutely tell her if it ever came up. 

“So were you the one that let them know where I was?”

“Yeah, though in fairness I didn’t tell John. He can just read minds. Apparently I was projecting.”

“Huh.” That was new.

“Right? He says he never does it on purpose—that it’s a major taboo or something, but he does it juuuust enough that I’m not so sure you know? Like he _always_ knows when Alex or I are hungover. Just—“ he made a whistle noise and pointed with his fingers. “Zeroes in.”

“Alex get drunk often?”

“Not often. Just since you two had some fight. You guys make up?”

She sipped her orange juice. “We did.”

“Good, because girl was getting ridiculous you know?”

“I really don’t.”

He flushed again. “Sorry. It’s just…Alex doesn’t do friends really? Like ever. It’s her sister and work and that’s about it. So having someone—having you. That’s important to her.”

Maggie had no real basis for a conversation like the one she found herself in with Winn. People never confided in her like Winn was—revealing secrets about a girl she liked as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

So she went for an empathetic smile. “She’s important to me too.”

The door swung open again and Alex came out alone. She seemed confused by the sight of Maggie and Winn together, leaning on a wall and sipping juice, but didn’t say anything.

“Your friend John letting M’gann out?”

“J’onn,” she said, putting just enough of an accent on the name to confirm Maggie’s martian suspicions. “Yeah. We’re short staffed at the moment, so we could use her help. But you and I have something else to do.”

“We do?”

“Uh huh.” She wagged her phone. “Lena Luthor is down at your station demanding to see her mother. As Lillian Luthor is currently in a cell a lot like that one,” she jerked her thumb back towards the door, “That’s a bit of a problem.”

***

Lena was not a person given to nervous energy. She found outlets. She was a business woman and a talented engineer and she relied on those professions to bleed the nerves out of her.

Except for the nerves she got when Kara Danvers smiled in her general direction.

Or the nerves when she found herself bereft of friends or recourse and waiting in the lobby of a police station, watching her personal attorney argue with a desk sergeant.

Then she had a minor urge to bounce her knee or chew on a nail.

“Wait,” her attorney had said as they walked up the stairs and into the station together. “Am I supposed to be representing your mother?”

“God no.” Lena had actually shuddered. “I just need you to get me in a room with her.” Long enough for her to ask about Cadmus. Find out the truth about Kara.

“That’s going to be difficult if I’m not there to represent her. She might not want to see you, or she might not even have the _right_ to see you. She tried to kill every alien in National City.”

“A fact of which I’m aware.” Tension in the city had been simmering ever since. Low enough that Lena was able to ignore it. Until she woke up that morning and heard about an vicious human on alien stabbing in the Craftsman Quarter and an alien on human assault at a bodega downtown.

Supergirl being remarkably mute on the subject wasn’t helping things either.

National City was slowly, surely, becoming a power keg.

Now Lena was sitting on an uncomfortable bench, fighting the urge to flick through news reports on her phone, and watching her attorney beg an audience for her with her mother.

It felt just demeaning enough to assuage her nerves.

Another cop had joined the conversation with her attorney. She looked suspiciously like the one she’d met at Kara’s the night before.

Lena glanced down at her phone. The reminder for her bar date with Kara, now way overdue, popped up again.

Then a cup of bad smelling coffee appeared in front of her.

It was attached to the hand of Alex Danvers, who looked better (cleaner) than the night before. Though she’d found a pair of sunglasses somewhere and had them perched on her nose.

She sipped her own coffee and slumped onto the bench next to Lena.

“I thought you and your mother weren’t close.”

“We aren’t.”

She tried the coffee. It was black, had zero sugar, and tasted awful.

Alex Danvers seemed unconcerned with the flavor. “So why do you want to talk to her then? Look in the face of evil?”

“If Cadmus really took Kara she’ll know.”

“She won’t.”

“She will.”

“She won’t, because I’ve spent every day since Kara disappeared interviewing your mom. She’s not talking, and I don’t think seeing a daughter she hates will change that.”

“I have to do something.”

Danvers snorted. One eyebrow rose over her sunglasses. “Launching your own investigation? That’s your plan?”

“Kara’s my friend.”

“She’s my sister. And I’m a federal agent.” Alex leaned in close and lowered her voice. “l think I’m a little more equipped.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re well-equipped,” Lena swallowed. “For most investigations. But you’ve never dealt with a Luthor.” She leaned in too, like a conspiracy was unfurling between them. “We’re anything but ordinary.”

Alex seemed to take a measure of her then, making Lena feel suddenly self-conscious. “Of that I have no doubt.” She tossed her coffee cup into the trash. “Come on.”

“Wait. What?” Lena felt very confused.

“You want to help with the investigation, and you’re clearly not going to disappear if I ask nicely. So you’re in. Lose the lawyer and meet me and Detective Sawyer outside.”

“Who…the detective?”

Detective Sawyer had ended her conversation with Lena’s attorney and was looking at Lena and Alex with some kind of indefinable look.

“Very same.”

“She looks irritated.”

“That’s just her face. Get to know her and Maggie Sawyer is damn amazing.” Alex was close enough that Lena could feel her breath puff on her ear. “See you in five.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally a Maggie heavy chapter, but I fucked up. So now NEXT chapter is a Maggie heavy chapter. Please to enjoy weird Alex/Lena tension.
> 
> Feel free to yell at me at maggiemerc.tumblr.com.

Alex didn’t think Lena Luthor could get any paler, but the woman did, hurriedly pulling a silk scarf out of her purse and holding it to her nose.

It was the brackish smell of dried blood.

“Squeamish,” Maggie asked, eyes alight with amusement.

Luthor shook her head. “There’s just more than I expected.”

Alex stepped over the large stain on the floor. Toed a splash of blood that had poured from her own hand twenty four hours earlier. “Was thinking the same thing while I bled everywhere.”

Luthor actually looked apologetic, big green eyes hiding nothing.

Maggie knelt next to the crumbled brick of the fireplace. “What happened here?”

Alex could still hear the sickening crunch in her ears. “We got the bad guy.”

Maggie touched the brick and then immediately pulled away in revulsion, strands of blond hair clinging to her fingers. “So what are we looking for?”

Alex had no idea. Some clue her team had missed while they hurriedly chronicled the site and she rode back to base with a dying Mon-El in her arms.

“The woman living here was a Cadmus agent.” She kicked a pillow away with the end of her boot. “And she was definitely placed here. Maybe she left something behind we can use.”

“Didn’t your guys look,” Maggie asked.

“Yeah. But they could have missed something. Especially because I wasn’t there to run the scene.”

Luthor took a seat on the edge of the couch, a few inches from more blood splatter, and rooted through her purse as if she wasn’t near the dried ichor of the dead or dying. “Did they look for any signals? A way the agent was transmitting data to her handlers.”

“They should have.”

“They find anything?”

“House was completely clean.”

Lena murmured a “yes” and pulled a small watertight box out of her bag. “I’m not one to brag—“

“I get the feeling you’re going to,” Maggie said.

Luthor ignored her. “But L Corp is the government’s primary supplier for signal sniffers. Police. Military. Even the FBI comes to us.“ She opened the box on her lap, clasp clicking loudly. A multitude of wires immediately sprang out. “But our best tech doesn’t always make it into government hands."

Alex raised an eyebrow. ”Holding out on your country?"

Luthor smiled. “Hardly. I had to scrap this particular project when I was heading up R&D. It did a good job sniffing out signals, but it was too sensitive. Operate it incorrectly and it creates a feedback loop that kills all wireless signals in a three block radius for a few hours."

It sounded impressive, but the hodgepodge mess of wires and circuit boards looked like it had been put together in a kid’s basement. “That could be a problem."

"Yes,” Luthor said. Her voice throaty and tone pleased. “Fortunately I've got a very delicate touch." She wagged her fingers when she said it. Held Alex's gaze long enough for her to feel like she was being flirted with.

Maggie’s footsteps were loud on the wood floor, and she creaked as she walked thanks to a leather belt heavy with gun and badge. "So you're just gonna tick some switches and instantly know more than Danvers and her big government agency does.”

Luthor's smile for Maggie didn't seem quite as polite. "That's the plan detective."

Maggie huffed and waved her hand. Lena pried the rest of the device out of its case and began screwing in large antennas like the kind on the back of Alex’s router at home. When she was done she plugged her phone into the device and opened a terminal window, rapidly churning out commands with well-manicured fingers.

“She really just carries that around," Maggie asked. Her voice low and private for Alex, but loud enough that Luthor heard.

Luthor’s lips twisted in annoyance. "I thought I might need it."

Alex knelt next to her. “If this works you’ll have to rethink scrapping the project. My people could probably build something similar, but it looks like you’ve got some awfully elegant code involved.”

“Oh very,” Luthor said proudly. She typed in another command. LEDs on the device’s main circuit board flickered quickly and a little fan over the processor whirred noisily as the CPU was taxed. “And we didn’t scrap it because it doesn’t work. We scrapped it because law enforcement tends to prefer more…blunt…tech. I doubt you would want to spend the resources training your agents to use it.”

“You don’t know me,” Alex said, her mouth stuck somewhere between a smile and grimace.

Behind her Maggie muttered a fond sounding “nerd”. Then her footsteps carried her away, back towards a wall of photos still splashed with blood.

Luthor returned to her terminal window, typing in more commands with fast fingers.

Alex watched the machine hum and blink and resisted the urge to touch it. She wasn't quite the radio geek Winn was, but she could understand enough to know that the thing was extraordinary. And better than anything they'd culled from alien tech--which tended to ignore terrestrial radio signals entirely.

Maggie clomped closer again. “So we just wait,” She asked. She was starting to look unimpressed. Maybe even irritated. Her arms were crossed over her chest and lips were pursed, and Maggie’s entire body was humming with that unmistakable energy of boredom.

“And maybe turn off your phone,” Luthor said. She didn’t even look up from her work. “Just to be safe.”

Maggie pulled her phone out and powered it down with a stab of her thumb before stalking out of the room.

That got Luthor’s attention. She looked up, eyes following Maggie’s retreating form. Then she glanced at Alex.

“She’s more a shoe leather and beat the pavement kind of cop,” Alex said. “This whole waiting on the nerds thing isn’t really her…thing.”

Lena held her gaze longer than Alex was comfortable with. Then those eyes like green glass flickered back down to her phone and Lena returned to her work.

Finding herself with less purpose than she had a few minutes earlier Alex stood up, thighs protesting lightly, and followed after Maggie.

The house was eerily still despite three women and a whirring wi-fi machine taking up residence. It was probably all in Alex’s head. The acute knowledge that she was walking through a dead woman’s pretend life was inescapable.

Pictures on the wall. A bra hanging from the bathroom doorknob. Muddy boots at the end of the hall. As fake as the woman’s life had been, it had still been interrupted abruptly.

And it was most apparent in the room she found Maggie standing in. It was made up like a nursery. All green and cream colored. But it was only half decorated. Paint supplies, a hammer, and unhung pictures in the corner spoke of plans that weren't going to be fulfilled.

Alex stuck her fingers in the front pockets of her jeans and leaned into the room. “You know designers started using green and purple to try and avoid gendering nurseries?”

Maggie looked up from the stuffed elephant she was holding. Long fingers digging into the gray fur.

Alex’s shoulders hitched. “Didn’t work. Now purple is for girls and green is for boys. Pink was actually for boys too. Once.”

Maggie blinked. Slow and confused.

“There’s this whole idea the colors switched because of Hitler. He put pink triangles on gays. But a lot of people actually consider Mamie Eisenhower’s inaugural dress to be the reason the colors changed.” Kara had announced that fact at the breakfast table one morning only a few months into moving in with them. She’d stayed up all night reading all encyclopedias and then falling down Google rabbit holes.

Maggie set the elephant back on the dresser. “I did not know that.” God her wry smile was just…Alex liked to see it. Which was maybe a little of why she babbled. Partly out of habit and partly because it was guaranteed to put that smile on Maggie’s face. “So how am I supposed to dress my nephew if I want to be gender neutral?”

Alex shrugged. “It’s kind of hard now. Everything gets gendered. Maybe give him pink clothes? Purple? A lot of it is just being conscious I guess? If you’re aware you’re a little less likely to—“

In the middle of all the babbling Maggie had somehow crossed the room, and come close enough to settle a hand on Alex’s waist before surprising her with a kiss. All gentle and sure and enough to soothe nerves just beneath Alex’s skin.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re cute when you babble?”

“Habit I picked up,” Alex said, and she tried to enjoy the next kiss. Tried not to think about Kara’s rapid fire know-it-all English when she’d first come to Earth, how she babbled in the language because at first everyone had told her she was too precious and thoughtful, so she went for goofy and charming.

She closed her eyes and kissed Maggie harder. Pushed her sister from her mind. And the ache in her hand. And the distant noise of Lena Luthor in the other room.

Focused just on Maggie, who rested cool fingers on Alex’s cheeks. Whose soured coffee breath was somehow a sweet taste on Alex’s tongue.

“How am I doing at taking your mind off things,” Maggie asked. She was smiling.

Always smiling.

And one thumb dragged across Alex’s lower lip.

Alex just nodded. Went in for one of the intense kisses that was probably too much tongue for Maggie. Probably looked like Alex was eating her face as she tried to put all herself into the kiss—until everything was drained out of her.

Her good hand found Maggie’s ass and squeezed and…

Alex didn’t want to say the soft curve of Maggie’s ass was like coming home, but it was so right after more than a decade of guys.

She might have kept kissing Maggie. Pushed herself into doing something delicious and silly in the fake nursery of a dead fake woman’s home.

But she heard Luthor coming down the hallway, her heels faint on the carpet, and she pushed away, wiping her hand across her mouth and relishing the dopey kissed to hell and back smile Maggie had on her face.

“Find anything,” Alex called. Her shoulders stooped forward as she went into the hallway.

Luthor came up short and looked to Alex’s lips before quickly looking away. “I did. Around here.”

Alex casually stepped in front of the nursery door, giving Maggie more time to put herself together. “Any way to pin point it?”

“If there was I wouldn’t be wandering.” She must have caught Maggie’s eye over Alex’s shoulder because she looked even more uncomfortable as she wagged a finger towards the bedroom at the end of the hallway. “I’ll check down there first.”

Maggie’s knee bumped the back of Alex’s leg. “She not a fan of PDA?”

“Maybe she hates lesbians.”

Maggie chuckled. “Yeah. Pretty sure Lena Luthor is some kind of gay. She spoke at a GLAAD event a while back.”

“You track GLAAD events?”

She sniffed and pretended to look offended. “I have gay friends you know. People who actually have time to care about the cause.”

“You’re doing your part too Sawyer. Sending the women of National City on journeys of self discovery.”

“Me and Cate Blanchett.”

“Oh God. You know Kara’s made we watch that movie three times since I came out to her? It’s great, but the sex scenes are still incredibly awkward when you’re sister’s sitting right next to you.”

“Awkward. But hot,” Maggie said. And the way she said it did very pleasant things to Alex’s insides.

Things that started to make her understand all those romance novels Kara used to read.

Out loud.

At the dinner table.

The big goof—

And just like that she missed her sister again.

***

The best liars always gave you just a glimpse enough of the truth that you'd dare to trust them. Little moments of honesty that made the lies seem too outrageous in response.

Alex was, from what Maggie could figure out, a very accomplished liar. Honest and raw so much of the time that her lies were hard to catch. She didn't have any cute little tells.

But in the last month Maggie had resolved to be an expert on the many moods and moments of Alex Danvers. So when she saw Alex’s light mood dim and asked if she was okay and Alex said she was fine, Maggie knew it was a lie.

She would have called her on it, gently, but Luthor came out into the hallway again. “I found it,” she said pridefully.

Alex didn’t quite smile, but looked happier immediately. “Show me.”

Maggie trailed after them, the feeling of being a third wheel roiling around inside of her.

She wasn’t. She knew that. She was the only cop in the house and the only one with any history working an actual missing person’s case, but she still felt like she was toddling along after the two super geniuses who fell into techno nerd speak with ease.

It was because she had to fall for a nerd wasn't it? Not a bartender or a lawyer or a trust fund girl by day and vigilante by night. Just a big nerd who could put every ball in a pocket in a pool table using math and spout off mouth garbling science in between sips of beer, but could also accurately shoot a gun with either hand and for reasons Maggie couldn’t fathom, actually thought Maggie hung the moon.

If she weren't so desperate to keep Alex in her life she would have told her to run far and fast.

In the bedroom Luthor had taken some of the dead woman’s lipstick and drawn a broad circle over half a wall and the floor. Alex was currently kneeling and pressing against the floorboards.

“None of them are loose,” she said. She moved onto the wall, pressing her cheek to it to judge its surface. “And there doesn’t seem to be a seam. How was she getting access?”

“We need the unit she was transmitting from, but she wouldn’t have. It would have just functioned as a relay for speaking to her contacts at Cadmus.”

Oh. This Maggie could handle. She asked them what she would have asked her own tech guys. “What about her cell or laptop? Anything on it? Maybe a way for us to use this hidden relay?”

Alex shook her head. “They both had deadman switches. Fried everything as soon as we powered them on. We’ve got people working on data recovery, but it’ll take months to do. We need the relay.”

The "now" was left unspoken.

Alex stood up, nodded to herself. Hopped from foot to foot like a kickboxer before a fight. Then she kicked the wall like it was a door she was breaching.

Maggie winced in sympathy pain. Called Alex's name, and then pulled her back. "I got this," she said. She ran back over to the nursery and grabbed the hammer that had been left behind.

Clearing both other women away, and acutely aware that all eyes were on her, Maggie swung the hammer. Plaster fractured at her blow. She hit the same spot twice more and a small hole formed. Then she grabbed it with the claw end and yanked.

A chunk of the wall fell away, but it revealed nothing more than thick black cables.

Alex hissed in annoyance. “It’s just the antenna,” she said. “The relay must be under the floor.”

Luthor was dry as wine. “Don’t think you can just kick your way through. We’ll need a saw.”

Maggie chuckled. Feeling smarter than either super genius. “No, we won’t. This is place is on a raised foundation. We just need to crawl under and find it."

Luthor scoffed. “'We'? You wouldn't even know what you’re looking for, and even if you find it there's probably a dead man’s switch there too.”

“I can do it,” Alex said, already making her way towards the door.

Maggie caught her arm. “That's not happening.”

“I agree with the detective, Alex.” Since when was Luthor on a first name basis with Alex? “You're not going alone.” The billionaire squared her shoulders. "I'm going with you."

***

Lena regretted the decision to be bold and brave as soon as she was staring at the desiccated rat corpse just inside the crawlspace under the house. She was wearing Alex Danvers’ spare clothes. Or old previously worn clothes judging by how wrinkled they were, and the faint smell of someone that wasn’t herself

At least Alex Danvers left a nice, subtle smell on her old clothes. No scented shampoos or cloying perfumes. And she’d handed them over so quickly and without fuss that it made Lena feel comfortable. Like she’d found some kind of acquaintance in the FBI agent. Maybe even more than acquaintance. Possibly a friend?

But the detective, Sawyer, kept glaring at Lena with a mixture of wariness and vague Luthor-engendered distrust. Maggie Sawyer was very polite, but Lena had faced down enough frigid and polite smiles over the years to know when someone disliked her.

At least with Sawyer Lena had an inkling of her dislike. More than just being a Luthor, it was probably because Lena had brazenly stripped out of her dress on the street to put on Alex’s clothes.

They both saw the way it made Alex Danvers blush and look skyward, throat bobbing adorably.

Lena wasn’t flirting or trying to entice or anything. She knew Alex and the detective were…close. She was just being pragmatic, and it had felt stupid to go back inside to change when it was faster and easier to do it by the car with the other two women’s bodies shielding her. (The blush had been a nice bonus. Alex, like her sister, seemed to inspire unexpected fondness in Lena).

Alex, unexpectedly tactile, gave Lena a pat on the shoulder and squeezed the detective’s arm. “Okay, we’re gonna go in. Yell if anyone shows up?”

Sawyer glanced down at Alex’s hand. “You sure you two don’t want company?”

“We’ll be fine Maggie.” Alex’s hand skated down the detective’s arm before briefly clasping her fingers. Then she stepped into the crawlspace, flipping on her flashlight as soon as she was under.

Lena tried to comfort the detective before joining Alex. Smiling politely and saying “It will be fine.”

The detective’s cool gaze told Lena the attempt at comfort didn’t work.

So Lena pushed the detective from her mind and followed the detective’s…girlfriend(?) into the space under the house.

“Why does it smell like something very old, and very sad, died?”

Alex’s light flashed over a distant corner, its glow illuminating the bones of nearly a century of things that had crawled under the house and given up their struggle. “House was built in the late twenties or early thirties. That’s a lot of raccoons, possums, and sad old dogs to crawl away and die.”

“You seem to know a lot about crawl spaces,” Lena observed.

“The house Kara and I lived in had as raised foundation. After my dad was gone guess who got to go under the house whenever the plumbing acted up?”

“You didn’t use older sibling’s prerogative to make Kara do it?”

Alex’s smile was all teeth. “Isn’t how we did things in the Danvers household. I was the handy one. She was the housekeeper.”

“And your mother—the lawyer right?”

“Scientist. She was busy.” Her tone dared Lena to press further.

Lena, never one to back down from a challenge or polite request she disagreed with, felt compelled to do just that. “Kara said your mother did something involving the law?”

“Kara’s mother did. My mother is a biological engineer.”

“Oh…you’re half sisters?”

Alex’s light flashed briefly on Lena’s face. “Kara’s adopted.”

Some part of Lena should have known that. If she’d looked into Kara further, beyond some light stalking on social media and a careful reading of every byline she’d received at CatCo, she might have realized it.

Maybe if she’d watched Kara’s eyes more than her mouth when the spoke. If she’d search Kara’s face harder when she mentioned her own adoption. Then she would have realized it. Would have felt less blindsided crouched under a house with Kara’s FBI agent sister.

“She doesn’t mention it really,” Alex added. Like she could see how shocked Lena was—and flabbergasted by her own ignorance. “I can probably name on one hand the number of people she’s told since we were kids.”

“Really? I tell everyone I’m adopted,” Lena said.

“Yeah, but Danvers doesn’t have quite the same baggage as Luthor does it?”

It might have been offensive, but Alex said it wryly, forcing Lena to chuckle. “You should really take up branding doomsday devices. Does wonders for the family image.”

Alex continued a slow methodical search of the crawlspace with her flashlight. “I’ll bring that up at the next reunion.”

Lena squinted, the light shinning on a bundle of familiar looking cables. “There, I think that’s the antennas from upstairs.”

She crawled carefully, trying to avoid ruining her borrowed clothes. Alex followed, and somehow her flashlight never stopped shining on the antenna wires.

“You know I have to say, I’m surprised you’re helping me look.”

“Kara’s a friend. I don’t come by those often with my last name.”

“Which you’ve mentioned before. I love Kara too, but come on…it’s a little weird.”

“Why, because I’m a Luthor and we don’t care for anything but the cause of human superiority?”

“Sure. That. And you only just met my sister a few months ago. Also the whole billionaire thing. Couldn’t you have just hired a PI?”

“I wouldn’t even begin to know where to find a PI who would willingly go toe to toe with a secret black ops organization out to destroy human-alien relations.”

“You’ve got enough money though. I’m sure you could find one.”

“Perhaps, but there’s one lesson my mother and brother instilled in me that I’ve never been able to shake.” She reached the antenna wires and traced them along the thick wooden beams and into the ground.

“What’s that,” Alex asked.

“Getting your hands dirty can be worth it.” She dug into the dirt, fingers immediately catching on something hard. “Careful,” Lena said, voice a harsh whisper admonishing herself.

Alex said nothing. Just crept closer, glow of her light never leaving Lena’s hands.

Lena didn’t bother to look down at what she’d found, instead feeling around the device with her fingertips. “I’m not feeling any other wires or ports. Which means I should be able to move the box without tripping anything.”

“No pressure sensors under the box?”

Her fingers grazed the surface just under the box. “None I can feel.”

“How sure are you?”

Lena laughed.

“Yeah, if you’re handling a device that could maybe blow up in our face, laughing is probably not a good idea.”

Lena glanced up at Alex. “You think it could be explosive too?”

“Of course. This relay probably handles communications for a huge chunk of Cadmus agents in the area. If I were them I’d _have_ to put a bomb on it. Just for moments like this.”

“Nice to know you and Cadmus might be on the same page.”

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t Lena?”

She chuckled darkly. “Of course I would. It’s just perfect sense right.”

“Exactly,” Alex said, a little exaggeratedly. Lena’s eyes flickered up and caught there an absolutely charming smile.

She melted a little, her grip on the device going loose. Only Alex’s hand, sudden and firm on her wrist, stopped her. “Focus,” she said slowly.

Lena swallowed. Looked down. Swallowed again.

“You’ve got this,” Alex encouraged.

“I’m suddenly regretting digging this thing up myself.”

“You’ll be fine.”

She laughed again. Who knew she laughed in the face of certain, explosive-related, death. “Right. I’m a Luthor. I come from a long line of mechanical geniuses.”

“Thought you were adopted?”

“They only adopt geniuses.”

Alex leaned closer, her flashlight’s glow flaring as it caught on shiny metal. “Hey, something the Danvers and Luthors have in common.”

“Kara’s a mechanical genius?”

“Oh no. Kara finds ninety percent of science and engineering too boring to bother with. But she _is_ a genius manipulator.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“Because she doesn’t want you to. That’s how good she is. Wraps us around her finger.”

Alex’s distraction took Lena’s mind off certain death, and she carefully brushed dirt away and examined the box visually. “So. The detective.”

The light darted away from the box and then back again. “What?”

“I need to take my mind off possible death. Tell me more about Maggie Sawyer.”

Now it was Alex nervously laughing. “We’re just…she’s…why do you care about Maggie?”

“You two seem close.”

“Sure. We’re…colleagues.”

Lena hummed. She reached into the pocket of Alex’s jacket, the only thing in the crawlspace that actually smelled nice, and pulled out the tech kit she normally kept in her purse.

“Colleagues don’t kiss each other.”

The light flickered away again and Lena froze.

“Sorry,” Alex mumbled. “How…when?”

“Just a guess. You were acting funny when I found you in the fake nursery. Are you dating?”

Finding a thin metal spudger Lena carefully began prying the box open, slowly moving and feeling for any wires that might be linked to a dead man’s switch.

Alex sighed. “Barely. She kind of rejected me weeks ago, then the night before Kara disappears she shows up at my apartment talking about nearly dying and not wanting to waste time.”

“Romantic.”

“Much more romantic than any speech a guy has given me.”

Lena paused in her search for a wire. “Is she your first…woman?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Probably not for most people. But I’ve had a baby gaydar since college. Nearly got me kicked out.”

“I knew a guy in high school like that. Never got the appeal.”

Amusement laced Lena’s words. “Of being a baby gay’s first?”

Alex smirked. “Of sex in general.” Her blush was vibrant even in the cramped darkness under the house. “At least until very recently. But especially of being gay and…sleeping with people who might not even be.”

No wire. Lena carefully began to lift the top of the box away, Alex wordlessly lighting her way. “You think you might not be gay?”

“I don’t…I’m like almost a hundred percent sure I’m gay. But I still haven’t. I mean. How can I know until—God why am I talking to you about this?”

“I might set off a bomb and kills us both and you want your sexual identity sorted before that happens?”

“Maybe. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not normally a sounding board for people. It’s refreshing.”

“Really, because I know for a fact you helped my sister back when she first decided to be a journalist.”

Lena’s metal spudger met magnetic resistance. The deadman was operated by a magnet. “Maybe it's just Danvers sisters. You inspire me.”

Lena pulled two out of her kit, slowly sliding them into place.

“You inspire me with this little tech kit of yours. Why are you just keeping magnets around?”

“You wouldn’t guess it from my cool exterior and flawless fashion sense, but I used to be quite the nerd. Building the perfect portable tool kit was quite the rage on my high school engineering team.”

“Yeah we didn’t worry about that on the science team. More concerned with trying not to get wedgies from the cool kids.”

“How’d that work out?”

“Out bad assed the bad asses and took up competitive surfing.”

Lena froze.

Alex’s flashlight waved. “Another deadman switch.”

“No. Sorry. I was just thinking of what you look like in a wetsuit.”

Now it was Alex’s turn to freeze. Her blush so dark Lena was briefly worried Alex might faint. “That isn’t…I…we should focus.”

“Right. Sorry. So the detective. You just started dating?”

“I mean focus on the potential bomb.”

“I am. And the white noise of your very sad, very gay love life helps me focus.”

Lid-free Lena peered at the tangle of wires and circuit board.

“I kind of came out for her.” Alex said. She sounded miserable. Ashamed. Then a flip was switched and she was professional suddenly. “I’m not seeing any C4 or other explosives.”

“Me neither. But this battery is curious. There’s a voltage limiter between it and the device and then more wires are coming out of it to—” Lena used her spudger to push back more wires. “Clever.”

The light wavered. “What?”

“It’s meant to look like a random series of capacitors, but really it’s capsules of something that is probably _very_ fatal.”

“That’s more terrifying in my book.”

Lena looked up, studied Alex’s face blankly as her mind unconsciously sorted through the problem. Sweat had gathered on the thin skin under Alex’s eyes, and was beading on her upper lip.

“You came out for the detective?”

“Lena.”

Lena continued to stare.

“Yes. Okay. yes.” Alex rolled her eyes. “She was the reason I realized I was gay. And it weirded her out until it stopped and she showed up at my apartment. But now my sister is missing and we’re working with a Luthor and…what if she runs again? What if this,” she waved at herself, “is too much drama?”

“Then she’s an idiot.” Lena looked back down at the device, and only caught the first dawning of Alex’s soft look. It was easier to focus on the potentially booby trapped device than that soft look. “It’s interesting that they went with a battery. That means it’s temporary.”

“Make sense. Cadmus has been real high profile lately. They’d need to be prepared to scrub and run quickly.”

“Right. But if it’s temporary then this,” she pointed at the fake capacitors, “is probably intended to destroy everything as soon as the battery dies.”

“Yeah.” Alex leaned closer. A faint whiff of sweat tickled Lena’s nose. Alex pointed at a very fine wire snaking out of the device and to the capacitors. “And I bet that tells it to blow if there’s any tampering, just like the magnet latch.”

“Cadmus does good work.”

“Very good work,” Alex said, equally impressed with the mystery engineers of the shadow organization.

Resting the device on her knee Lena carefully pulled her phone out. “Think you can grab that USB cable in my kit and remove the casing on the larger end?”

Alex nodded, wedged her flashlight in her mouth and got to work.

Lena used her free hand to reach around Alex and pull out her phone. “Sorry,” she said when her hand grazed the firm muscles of the FBI agent’s rear end. “I need the battery.”

Alex said something, but it was distorted by the light in her mouth.

“I’m not gonna break your phone. Just gonna take the battery. You’re all charged up right?”

Alex grunted an affirmative. Her nimble fingers had made short work of the cable and she was quickly splicing it into the device, not even needing a prompting.

Lena popped the battery out and handed it to her so she could replace it with the one in the device. Then she plugged her own working phone into the other end of the mangled USB cable.

“So what about the detective made you realize you were gay?”

Alex nearly choked on her flashlight.

Lena popped open a terminal window on her phone. Started to trace the signal. “She’s gorgeous, but you look like you and used to competitively surf, so she’s probably not the first gorgeous woman you’ve seen.”

“It’s everything.”

Signal traced she quickly hacked together a spoof signal. “Because she’s beautiful and a cop?”

“And brave, and smart, and she gets me. I mean most people would have run when they found me sitting alone in my sister’s apartment covered in blood. But she didn’t.”

And Lena didn’t either. “I’m confused then. She gets you, but you’re terrified she’s going to run because you’re too much drama.”

“That’s…”

The spoof signal seemed to be stable, the device failing to explode. So Lena took the time to hold Alex’s nervous gaze. “Here’s the thing I’ve learned since figuring out I was gay in college. The hardest part isn’t what people do or say to you. It isn’t going to be about prejudices or failed relationships. What’s hard is trusting—yourself, the people you care about. You don’t do that and you’re going to be a pretty damn miserable lesbian.”

“Who,” Alex nodded at the device, “hasn’t exploded. We did it.” Her smile was incandescent.

“Yeah,” Lena said. Throat suddenly dry. “We did.”

***

No one showed up.

A patrol car stopped by, and Maggie flashed her badge and the rookie and his sergeant both nodded and kept driving.

But otherwise it was just Maggie leaning against the side of the house and left alone with her thoughts.

She could periodically hear the murmur of Alex and the Luthor’s conversation. Little pieces of words, too fractious to have much meaning, and a little piece of her, the one always picked last for events in school because she was the gay kid, itched to be down there and in on the joke.

But instead she stood guard.

And waited.

Alex and Luthor eventually crawled out from under the house looking like they’d seen the end of the world and survived. Their hair was all mussed up and they were covered in enough sweat and dirt that Maggie was kind of wary of them getting in a car with her.

She plucked an old leaf out of Alex’s hair, loving the little nervous smile Alex gave her in return. “Find it?”

Luthor sucked in a huge breath. “We did.”

“Almost died,” Alex added. Smile turning cocky.

“Glad you survived Danvers. So what do we do? Your guys take it, or mine,” she asked Alex.

Luthor actually laughed. “I am not handing this over to the National City PD, or the FBI. Your guys couldn’t even find it.”

“A lot’s going on,” Alex said evenly. “And I’ve got the perfect guy to analyze it.”

“I’m the perfect person to analyze it,” Luthor countered. She was clutching the device to her chest. “And we’re,” she waved her hand between them, “in this together.”

“Lena…”

“Don’t, Alex. I don’t care about government protocol or whatever—and you obviously don’t either, or you wouldn’t be investigating your sister’s disappearance entirely on your own.”

Since when had she and the Luthor gotten on a first name basis? Maggie had known Alex for months and could still barely say her first name.

Feel a little left out, Maggie reached for Alex, gently settling her hand on Alex’s arm. “How about your guy meet us. Two super computer geniuses have got to be better to than one right?”

She looked from Lena to Alex, but the two women were too busy squaring off to notice her.

Finally Lena nodded.

Alex sighed then agreed too.

And, okay, yeah, big victory. Maggie got Alex and the Luthor to be friendly. But Maggie couldn’t shake the feeling she’d missed something underground. Something she really shouldn’t have.

***

Alex called Winn in the car, and as he’d been at the office, only a few blocks from Alex’s place, she knew he’d beat her there.

What she did not expect, climbing up the stairs to her third floor walk up, was to find James waiting there beside him.

Winn clearly didn’t expect Alex to have company either, yelping “people” when he saw Maggie and Lena.

“You’re the man that helped me at the gala,” Lena said. “You were at Kara’s apartment last night.”

“They're Kara’s friends,” Alex said. Winn was clutching a giant bag that probably held whatever souped up computer he needed. James, looking exhausted and bruised after more than three days of non-stop Guardian activity, was vibrating with the need to do something.

Alex could relate.

“Winn said you’d had a break,” James said. His eyes darted to Lena and Maggie warily. “Thought I’d come by to help out.”

“Aren’t you Superman’s pal,” Maggie asked. “Couldn’t you call him or Alex’s little running buddy for help?”

Recognition clicked comically on Lena’s face. “You’re James Olsen!”

He nodded. “Yeah. And both Supers are kind of busy, Detective. The whole xenophobe versus alien thing has people kicking off all over.”

Winn snorted. “More like exploding. We’ve had more incidents than we can keep up with. You’ve probably seen it with the NCPD right?”

Maggie blushed. “I’m, uh, technically on leave at the moment.” She pointed at her shoulder. “They apparently don’t want you working after you get hit with a laser.”

Alex rooted her keys out of her pocket jammed them in the lock, shoving the door open with her shoulder.

“You got hit with a laser?” Winn sounded impressed.

“When the cyborg attacked L Corp the other day. Hurt like hell.”

“I can’t believe no one told me the evil robot shoots lasers,” he grumbled. “You’d think that be key information to impart.”

Alex made a beeline to her fridge, pulling out the rest of the six pack she and Maggie never finished, and the whiskey she’d started before that. “No one told you about the lasers?”

“No. And it wasn’t in anyone’s report either.”

“Supergirl and I must have missed that,” she deadpanned. She poured a finger of whiskey and sipped it in a gulp.

It wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had, but it dulled all the noise in her head. Fear and worry and less critical things at the moment…

Like the feelings she had for Maggie, who popped the cap off a beer and phantom toasted her before taking a sip, and whatever had been going on under the house with Lena, who had settled on Alex’s cause beside Winn.

The talking quickly drifted to excited noises over Winn’s choice of soldering iron and laptop. James took a seat in the chair beside the two, watching with interest and nodding like he understood.

Maggie leaned against the countertop and watched them, periodically looking over her shoulder to check on Alex.

The hum of worry in Alex went deader with every sip. The urgent need to _move_ that had chased Alex since she’d realized Kara had been taken, was nearly gone. Rooted out by exhaustion, a little booze, and Maggie and Lena’s blind support.

She finished off a third finger (it was really more a double shot) and headed to the bedroom, tapping Maggie on her shoulder as she went.

Maggie wordlessly followed.

But as soon as they were in the room, with the door shut, a little bit of Maggie seemed to deflate. “Nice room,” she said, eyes roaming over the space.

“Yeah I guess we never made it this far the other night, huh?”

Maggie ducked her head, then tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “No. And we probably shouldn’t—“

“Oh! No. No.” Alex was sure her face was beet red. “That wasn’t—I was just. I thought. You had to sleep on the couch last night and you must be tired. So…bed.”

Maggie glanced at the bed and then back at Alex’s eyebrow raised teasingly. “Bed?”

Alex’s face was on fire. “Bed. For you. Shower. For me. Because the house. Gross.”

“You’re getting really monosyllabic on me Danvers.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, face still aflame. “Apparently I’m running out of words…”

Her sentence drifted off as soon as Maggie’s hands were resting on her waist. She’d approached slowly, sweet smile never dimming. Come into Alex’s space all calm and naturally.

It pulled the last vestiges of anxiousness out of Alex.

“I would love to take a nap,” she said. Then she tilted her head. “Join me?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah.” She’s never really got it when people talked about a magnetic pull towards anther person. At least until that moment, when it felt like the whole physical world, every atom of existence, was demanding Alex close her eyes and kiss Maggie.

But Maggie pulled away suddenly. “After you shower Danvers.”

“Right.” And the blush was back.

“Because you stink.”

“Yeah.” She was nodding automatically. 

“And I think when we get those sheets all dirty it should be a group effort.”

Alex’s mouth went completely dry.

***

“You think they’re napping,” Winn asked.

Lena did not.

"It's nice Alex has a friend," Winn said. "Beside Kara."

Lena looked up, forced to stare ahead blankly and not consider how a man so smart could be so dumb.

"Winn," James Olsen, best friend of Superman and apparently Kara Danvers, sounded as pained as Lena felt.

She glanced at him and they shared a look for amusement.

"Thanks for helping with all this," James said. "I don't know if any of us would have gotten this far."

"I would have," Winn sniffed. "Eventually."

"It's no problem," Lena said. "Kara's my friend too."

She saw the significant look Winn and James Olsen shared. And Lena wasn't an idiot. She knew what they were to Kara and what, distantly, she was. They were the inner circle. Lena, at best, was a work friend. Random drinks and a card at the holidays.

She would have, should have, been embarrassed. But she couldn't bring herself to be. Not with the niggling fear that she was responsible for Kara's disappearance.

So when they found what they were looking for an hour later Lena volunteered to go to Alex’s bedroom door and knock—thrusting herself into the inner circle where she had no business being.

The door swung open, the detective, hair tousled from “sleep” emerging in wrinkled clothes, and Alex trailing behind her, hair still wet from a shower, but shirt hiked up from decidedly non-shower activities.

"Feel better," Lena asked, unable to stop herself. Not when the blush was turning Alex's ears red and Maggie was trying not to scowl at her.

"Much," Alex said, smile tight and eyes warily watching Winn and James Olsen for a reaction.

Winn was oblivious, but James was clearing his throat and pointing at the screen. "They found something."

Maggie tried combing her hair with her fingers. "That was fast."

Winn laughed. "Well yeah. They never expected us to get access. That was the whole reason they booby trapped it."

Alex came around to the back of the couch and leaned over Lena, her warmth pressed to Lena's back. "So what did you guys find?"

Alex Danvers didn't wear perfume. No scented shampoo or lavender. But god she was warm against Lena's back. Solid.

Lena swallowed.

"Oh it's good," Winn crowed. He tapped out a few quick commands and the list appeared. A long series of numbers.

"Coordinates," Maggie asked.

“I thought Socials,” James said.

“No, look,” Alex breathed. “Some are eight. Seven. A lot of fives. These are military ID numbers."

"Exactly." Winn was too happy. “Ten bucks this is a Cadmus roster. We look them up and we've got every agent in National City."

Maggie was looking thoughtful. Detective brain churning along. "Except Cadmus probably has all these IDs flagged. The minute you search them they’ll ghost."

Lena had thought of that. Sorted through the problem as neatly as if it were an engineering challenge. "Which is why we don't use the FBI or NCPD to search the list.”

"We get someone with access, but unaffiliated," Winn added.

Alex was still leaning over, finger idly flicking through the numbers. Dark eyes focused on the screen. “We can’t use Lucy or anyone else we work with. They’re probably flagged too.“

Lena cleared her throat. “L Corp has been working with the military for decades.” All eyes were on her. Alex still close enough Lena could see the faded freckles on her nose. “Most of them were my father’s friends, but I might be able to reach out.”

“You’d do that,” Alex asked. It sounded like there was a little wonder in her voice. Enough to inspire Lena. Encourage her to please.

“Kara’s mentioned your family,” Alex said. “I know—“

“I want to,” Lena insisted.

A sudden clap of hands together had Alex and Lena flying apart like they’d been too close. Maggie’s lazy grin was sharper than usual, glittering eyes settled on Lena. “It’s a good thing you don’t have to,” she said.

“You know someone,” Alex asked.

Maggie nodded. “I do. Old friend. Ex-military, and between her and her dad she can get us the access we need.”

“Cool.” Winn’s fingers were flying on his keyboard. “I’ll call an Uber and get her over here.”

“She's not from around here. Gotham actually.” Maggie said.

“You’ve got friends in Gotham,” Alex asked.

Maggie was cocky. “I got friends all over. Though Luthor might know this one too. Her cousin’s company has done a couple of joint projects with LuthorCorp over the years.”

Lena would have bristled at the purposeful misnaming over her company, but her mouth was already dropping open in surprise as her brain made rapid fire connections. “Wait. Your _friend_ is billionaire playgirl and Gotham princess Kate Kane?”

Maggie shrugged. “I gave her a speeding ticket once.”


End file.
